Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
April Fool
Or
P.S. Your Cat Is Dead
People that want money from me come at me from all different directions and are all on different schedules. My bills arrive in my mailbox all on different days. Also, they are all due on different days, which has me at my checkbook three or four times a week, at the post box three or four times a week and at my mail box every day. I’m thinking ‘some kind of conspiracy’. I’m thinking that they’re trying to drive me nuts…well, it’s too late.
Do you know what happens if you check your mail, say, once a week? When you look at how much the postman has managed to cram in there you just know that there’s a late fee lurking. And forget about waiting until the last possible day to post a bill. Of course, that’s the very day that you get the next bill from the very same people. You just cannot catch a break.
The fact of the matter is, that, if all my bills came at once, my life would be easier but my brain would probably go into the ‘deer in the headlight’ zone. I shudder to think of how much money I put out every month, I really don’t want to know, not all at once at least. I do know that it is all the money I make and then some.
Talk about not catching a break; I saw a mouse that had gotten that snap across the neck in one of those ‘look! Here’s some plastic cheese!’ affairs. His little hand was still outstretched wanting and wishing for that piece of orange plastic. The perfect picture of the April Fool.
You, or rather we, April Fools know who we are. We’re the ones waiting to inhale and exhale; waiting for our agent to call; the winning daily double; our lucky day; Hell to freeze over. We’re already aware that the concepts of winning or losing are nebulous at best and we’re pretty much happy if we can cop a draw.
Are you looking for an even playing field? Do you really believe that the check is in the mail? Good times are just around the corner? There is no recession? This year will be better than last year? That there is really a Department Of Happy Endings? April Fool.
Okay, the April Fool is a little naive, the April Fool still believes in love no matter how many times they have gotten their heart broken. The April Fool believes that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and every cloud does have a silver lining. That’s why we set aside the first day of April to celebrate them (us, you, me).
All Fools Day is celebrated (if you can call it celebrating) around the world. In France they’re called Poisson d’Avril, in Scotland they’re referred to as April-gowks (cuckoos). At one time, the last week in March into the first couple of days of April was when the New Year was celebrated, the time of the vernal equinox. A lot of people were slow at hearing about the change (1582, go figure), so, those in the know decided to play tricks on them, pretending it was the New Year and generally pulling wool over they’re eyes and confusing them and stuff like that; until the day has generally degenerated into what we have now: a day dedicated to embarrassing the gullible. That’s me…the gullible.
Let’s see, who else could be called an April Fool? Let’s go down a list: do you, or have you ever, believed in organized government, The Road Home, the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, or the ability of someone up for election who will take the stars from the sky and put them back into your eyes?
‘See a pin and pick it up…that means all day you’ll have good luck’. “I’m looking over a four-leaf clover that I overlooked before”. “I’m siiiiiiiiiiiingin’ in the rain!!!!!!!!!!!” Etc. etc. etc. Sound familiar?
How many times have you played that game where you’ve bought your lottery ticket and before the numbers are even drawn, you have already decided where you will spend your winnings?
Hollywood has made a lot of money on movies for and about April Fools. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, girl finds out something and they break up.
The boy goes into the Army and is shipped off to fight in an unjust war. The girl stays at home and cries. The boy gets a bullet, which stays lodged in some obscure part of his body. The girl is in an automobile crash (not her fault). The little dog gets stolen by terrorists and is being set up to be a suicide bomber. The father (did we mention the father…a retired firefighter, blind since birth) and the mother (who makes the best gol-durn tuna casserole in the world!) are worried sick and the mortgage is overdue.
The girl is forced to work on the first floor of a honky tonk saloon (she just can’t make it up the stairs) and the boy’s buddies check him out of the hospital where the male nurse has a crush on him (and him and him and him).
The boys go to the honky tonk saloon and the boy sees the girl and naturally thinks the worst and flees. The girl sees this and rushes after him (not easy with her crutches, but he’s in a wheelchair--- and here comes Fido!!!) Meanwhile….you see where this is going? Not a dry eye in the house.
Well I say that the April Fool is being maligned and castigated unjustly. Think of it this way; were it not for us there would be no other holidays! Who else would celebrate Valentines Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas…. Easter?
So, here’s your assignment: think of some cool (non aggressive) tricks for All Fool’s Day, like asking someone if they knew that the word ‘gullible’ was being taken out of dictionaries, and get ready to be fooled yourself. When a prank is pulled on you, even when you know it, fall for it and laugh like you don’t have a lick of sense. Did you know that it’s April Fool’s Day today?
Comments, questions, gossip? phil@whereyat.com
Sunday, July 27, 2008
also Love in the French Quarter
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
April Fool
Or
P.S. Your Cat Is Dead
People that want money from me come at me from all different directions and are all on different schedules. My bills arrive in my mailbox all on different days. Also, they are all due on different days, which has me at my checkbook three or four times a week, at the post box three or four times a week and at my mail box every day. I’m thinking ‘some kind of conspiracy’. I’m thinking that they’re trying to drive me nuts…well, it’s too late.
Do you know what happens if you check your mail, say, once a week? When you look at how much the postman has managed to cram in there you just know that there’s a late fee lurking. And forget about waiting until the last possible day to post a bill. Of course, that’s the very day that you get the next bill from the very same people. You just cannot catch a break.
The fact of the matter is, that, if all my bills came at once, my life would be easier but my brain would probably go into the ‘deer in the headlight’ zone. I shudder to think of how much money I put out every month, I really don’t want to know, not all at once at least. I do know that it is all the money I make and then some.
Talk about not catching a break; I saw a mouse that had gotten that snap across the neck in one of those ‘look! Here’s some plastic cheese!’ affairs. His little hand was still outstretched wanting and wishing for that piece of orange plastic. The perfect picture of the April Fool.
You, or rather we, April Fools know who we are. We’re the ones waiting to inhale and exhale; waiting for our agent to call; the winning daily double; our lucky day; Hell to freeze over. We’re already aware that the concepts of winning or losing are nebulous at best and we’re pretty much happy if we can cop a draw.
Are you looking for an even playing field? Do you really believe that the check is in the mail? Good times are just around the corner? There is no recession? This year will be better than last year? That there is really a Department Of Happy Endings? April Fool.
Okay, the April Fool is a little naive, the April Fool still believes in love no matter how many times they have gotten their heart broken. The April Fool believes that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and every cloud does have a silver lining. That’s why we set aside the first day of April to celebrate them (us, you, me).
All Fools Day is celebrated (if you can call it celebrating) around the world. In France they’re called Poisson d’Avril, in Scotland they’re referred to as April-gowks (cuckoos). At one time, the last week in March into the first couple of days of April was when the New Year was celebrated, the time of the vernal equinox. A lot of people were slow at hearing about the change (1582, go figure), so, those in the know decided to play tricks on them, pretending it was the New Year and generally pulling wool over they’re eyes and confusing them and stuff like that; until the day has generally degenerated into what we have now: a day dedicated to embarrassing the gullible. That’s me…the gullible.
Let’s see, who else could be called an April Fool? Let’s go down a list: do you, or have you ever, believed in organized government, The Road Home, the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, or the ability of someone up for election who will take the stars from the sky and put them back into your eyes?
‘See a pin and pick it up…that means all day you’ll have good luck’. “I’m looking over a four-leaf clover that I overlooked before”. “I’m siiiiiiiiiiiingin’ in the rain!!!!!!!!!!!” Etc. etc. etc. Sound familiar?
How many times have you played that game where you’ve bought your lottery ticket and before the numbers are even drawn, you have already decided where you will spend your winnings?
Hollywood has made a lot of money on movies for and about April Fools. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, girl finds out something and they break up.
The boy goes into the Army and is shipped off to fight in an unjust war. The girl stays at home and cries. The boy gets a bullet, which stays lodged in some obscure part of his body. The girl is in an automobile crash (not her fault). The little dog gets stolen by terrorists and is being set up to be a suicide bomber. The father (did we mention the father…a retired firefighter, blind since birth) and the mother (who makes the best gol-durn tuna casserole in the world!) are worried sick and the mortgage is overdue.
The girl is forced to work on the first floor of a honky tonk saloon (she just can’t make it up the stairs) and the boy’s buddies check him out of the hospital where the male nurse has a crush on him (and him and him and him).
The boys go to the honky tonk saloon and the boy sees the girl and naturally thinks the worst and flees. The girl sees this and rushes after him (not easy with her crutches, but he’s in a wheelchair--- and here comes Fido!!!) Meanwhile….you see where this is going? Not a dry eye in the house.
Well I say that the April Fool is being maligned and castigated unjustly. Think of it this way; were it not for us there would be no other holidays! Who else would celebrate Valentines Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas…. Easter?
So, here’s your assignment: think of some cool (non aggressive) tricks for All Fool’s Day, like asking someone if they knew that the word ‘gullible’ was being taken out of dictionaries, and get ready to be fooled yourself. When a prank is pulled on you, even when you know it, fall for it and laugh like you don’t have a lick of sense. Did you know that it’s April Fool’s Day today?
Comments, questions, gossip? phil@whereyat.com
By
Phil LaMancusa
April Fool
Or
P.S. Your Cat Is Dead
People that want money from me come at me from all different directions and are all on different schedules. My bills arrive in my mailbox all on different days. Also, they are all due on different days, which has me at my checkbook three or four times a week, at the post box three or four times a week and at my mail box every day. I’m thinking ‘some kind of conspiracy’. I’m thinking that they’re trying to drive me nuts…well, it’s too late.
Do you know what happens if you check your mail, say, once a week? When you look at how much the postman has managed to cram in there you just know that there’s a late fee lurking. And forget about waiting until the last possible day to post a bill. Of course, that’s the very day that you get the next bill from the very same people. You just cannot catch a break.
The fact of the matter is, that, if all my bills came at once, my life would be easier but my brain would probably go into the ‘deer in the headlight’ zone. I shudder to think of how much money I put out every month, I really don’t want to know, not all at once at least. I do know that it is all the money I make and then some.
Talk about not catching a break; I saw a mouse that had gotten that snap across the neck in one of those ‘look! Here’s some plastic cheese!’ affairs. His little hand was still outstretched wanting and wishing for that piece of orange plastic. The perfect picture of the April Fool.
You, or rather we, April Fools know who we are. We’re the ones waiting to inhale and exhale; waiting for our agent to call; the winning daily double; our lucky day; Hell to freeze over. We’re already aware that the concepts of winning or losing are nebulous at best and we’re pretty much happy if we can cop a draw.
Are you looking for an even playing field? Do you really believe that the check is in the mail? Good times are just around the corner? There is no recession? This year will be better than last year? That there is really a Department Of Happy Endings? April Fool.
Okay, the April Fool is a little naive, the April Fool still believes in love no matter how many times they have gotten their heart broken. The April Fool believes that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and every cloud does have a silver lining. That’s why we set aside the first day of April to celebrate them (us, you, me).
All Fools Day is celebrated (if you can call it celebrating) around the world. In France they’re called Poisson d’Avril, in Scotland they’re referred to as April-gowks (cuckoos). At one time, the last week in March into the first couple of days of April was when the New Year was celebrated, the time of the vernal equinox. A lot of people were slow at hearing about the change (1582, go figure), so, those in the know decided to play tricks on them, pretending it was the New Year and generally pulling wool over they’re eyes and confusing them and stuff like that; until the day has generally degenerated into what we have now: a day dedicated to embarrassing the gullible. That’s me…the gullible.
Let’s see, who else could be called an April Fool? Let’s go down a list: do you, or have you ever, believed in organized government, The Road Home, the Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA, or the ability of someone up for election who will take the stars from the sky and put them back into your eyes?
‘See a pin and pick it up…that means all day you’ll have good luck’. “I’m looking over a four-leaf clover that I overlooked before”. “I’m siiiiiiiiiiiingin’ in the rain!!!!!!!!!!!” Etc. etc. etc. Sound familiar?
How many times have you played that game where you’ve bought your lottery ticket and before the numbers are even drawn, you have already decided where you will spend your winnings?
Hollywood has made a lot of money on movies for and about April Fools. Boy meets girl, they fall in love, girl finds out something and they break up.
The boy goes into the Army and is shipped off to fight in an unjust war. The girl stays at home and cries. The boy gets a bullet, which stays lodged in some obscure part of his body. The girl is in an automobile crash (not her fault). The little dog gets stolen by terrorists and is being set up to be a suicide bomber. The father (did we mention the father…a retired firefighter, blind since birth) and the mother (who makes the best gol-durn tuna casserole in the world!) are worried sick and the mortgage is overdue.
The girl is forced to work on the first floor of a honky tonk saloon (she just can’t make it up the stairs) and the boy’s buddies check him out of the hospital where the male nurse has a crush on him (and him and him and him).
The boys go to the honky tonk saloon and the boy sees the girl and naturally thinks the worst and flees. The girl sees this and rushes after him (not easy with her crutches, but he’s in a wheelchair--- and here comes Fido!!!) Meanwhile….you see where this is going? Not a dry eye in the house.
Well I say that the April Fool is being maligned and castigated unjustly. Think of it this way; were it not for us there would be no other holidays! Who else would celebrate Valentines Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas…. Easter?
So, here’s your assignment: think of some cool (non aggressive) tricks for All Fool’s Day, like asking someone if they knew that the word ‘gullible’ was being taken out of dictionaries, and get ready to be fooled yourself. When a prank is pulled on you, even when you know it, fall for it and laugh like you don’t have a lick of sense. Did you know that it’s April Fool’s Day today?
Comments, questions, gossip? phil@whereyat.com
Lunch in New Orleans
Po-boy Views
By Phil LaMancusa
Let’s get serious here for a minute. The ozone layer, homeless and jobless rates, the stock market, the energy crisis, pattern baldness and who the heck should honestly be our president (can you use those two words in the same sentence?) doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when mid morning comes, now does it?
The question really, as Douglas Adams put it in his sequel to Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, is, basically, “where shall we have lunch?”
I think of that, as the weather turns warmer and I wander from room to room, considering that empty feeling, that ‘hunger not of the soul’, picking up stray socks and blaming the mess around here alternately on the dog and/or the cat. Pondering, playing and toying with and on the eternal predicament: ‘where shall I eat? What do I feel like having? And, how far am I willing to go to get it?’
Running down the mid day meal is an experience and an adventure; I know, I do it an average of eight times a week. The criteria being that I should be able to begin my quest with an eleven-dollar bill and finish with a full belly and a fresh pack of squares (make mine Luckys, please).
Sanely enough, in the French Quarter, you can walk toward your destination, change your mind half a dozen times about where to stop, and wind up eating somewhere completely different than all of them.
********************************************
All places, from Annie’s Chicken Shack to Vat O’ Gumbo have things that I consider great and only with trepidation, and a great deal of faith, do I stray from requesting (I never ’order”) any other offerings. For example: Fiorella’s, on Thursdays, has a butterbean special that can’t be beat; but if you want their ‘famous’ fried chicken, you’ll have cramps (and maybe die) from hunger by the time it gets to you. Ergo: I go there on Thursdays AND I have butterbeans. In the same vein; if I recommend to someone the fried oyster po-boy at Mr. Johnny’s, I don’t want them to come cryote-ing to me because they didn’t like their red beans!
Go where you will for red beans, I say; those of us that ate Buster Holmes’ beans can’t eat them anywhere else, and he’s long gone just like a turkey through the corn. Opinionated? Me? You bet your blue plate!
Also, lunch requires some ‘splaining. For example, if I tell you that the most beautiful cook works at The Royal Street Gro. and the best sandwich maker works the counter at the Quarter Gro. That doesn’t mean to say that she doesn’t make a dynamite six-inch alligator (she sure does!) or that he’s anything that you’d kick to the curb (his club sandwich! Yes, yes!), it’s just my view; and if you don’t like the news (or views), as they say, feel free to make some of your own.
Speaking of Grocery stores. They are where most of us Quarter Rats excel in culinary savvy. They are where the true heartbeat of local cuisine (we like to call it ‘cookin’, thank you) is found. Ask anyone that’s had the crawfish pasta that is the Friday special at C&C, or the well thought out specials at Matassa’s, the roast beef po-boy at Peoples, the mac and cheese at Verde Mart, the chili cheese fries at the Nellie Deli, the alligator po-boy at The Royal Street (did I mention that cook, or their gumbo?), or the ‘pot cookin’ at J.C.’s
Is the muffelatta better at Progress or Central? Do you opt for the service (?) at Napoleon House? Who’s been to Frank’s lately and why? Ever wonder what natives discuss over coffee? Guess no more, we talk food and the discussions are as passionate as great foreplay, and it’s even sanctioned in groups (God, you give great menu!!!).
Speaking of menus. Have you tried Jaeger’s Back Kitchen? It is probably the best new place to open in a long while, maybe years. The ‘pot cookin’ is second to none, the prices are good and the service friendly. It’ll make you want to throw rocks at the Old Dog, just up the alley, but that’s another story.
If you’ve guessed by now that I have a lot to say on this subject, probably so much to say that I just will not have room for little things like addresses, phone numbers, business hours or the names behind the faces, BINGO! You win the Cuisinart! You’d be amazed how fast a thousand words go by. I’ll just leave it up to you to find out where these gems are; hint: they’re all in the Quarter.
Speaking of the Quarter; this is not to say that I don’t enjoy lunch beyond it’s boundaries. Like the Pho at Nine Happiness, the Pad Thai at Singha, a Menage a Trois at the whorehouse (The Sporting House), or the gumbo at Dubon’s. That’s just not so. Like I said, I just don’t have room to write it ALL.
Mena’s, Oh My Lord, Mena’s; have you ever had a better ham hock with cabbage, boiled potato and cornbread? And it’s just across the alley from Country Flame. What to choose? What to choose? And where to go to go to choose it. How do you choose it? I stand outside 1212 Royal St. for half an hour, rubbernecking the menus of Midnight Express and Mona Lisa’s, like a sailor in a red light district, trying to decide where I’ll get my kicks. They both get my vote for great food and they treat you like family.
The Gumbo Shop, twenty five years ago , had a banner inside the dining room that proclaimed in big letters: “Ici On Mange Bien” that is, “Here One Eats Well”. That’s still true of the Gumbo Shop and, for that matter, my French Quarter. If I had room for another thousand words… I would go on and on and on. But, I don’t.
Next Month: How the President saved the day by moving the French Quarter over there to solve The Mid East Crisis. (“betcha I can tell ya where you got that towel… on yo head! hahahahahahahaha
By Phil LaMancusa
Let’s get serious here for a minute. The ozone layer, homeless and jobless rates, the stock market, the energy crisis, pattern baldness and who the heck should honestly be our president (can you use those two words in the same sentence?) doesn’t amount to a hill of beans when mid morning comes, now does it?
The question really, as Douglas Adams put it in his sequel to Restaurant At The End Of The Universe, is, basically, “where shall we have lunch?”
I think of that, as the weather turns warmer and I wander from room to room, considering that empty feeling, that ‘hunger not of the soul’, picking up stray socks and blaming the mess around here alternately on the dog and/or the cat. Pondering, playing and toying with and on the eternal predicament: ‘where shall I eat? What do I feel like having? And, how far am I willing to go to get it?’
Running down the mid day meal is an experience and an adventure; I know, I do it an average of eight times a week. The criteria being that I should be able to begin my quest with an eleven-dollar bill and finish with a full belly and a fresh pack of squares (make mine Luckys, please).
Sanely enough, in the French Quarter, you can walk toward your destination, change your mind half a dozen times about where to stop, and wind up eating somewhere completely different than all of them.
********************************************
All places, from Annie’s Chicken Shack to Vat O’ Gumbo have things that I consider great and only with trepidation, and a great deal of faith, do I stray from requesting (I never ’order”) any other offerings. For example: Fiorella’s, on Thursdays, has a butterbean special that can’t be beat; but if you want their ‘famous’ fried chicken, you’ll have cramps (and maybe die) from hunger by the time it gets to you. Ergo: I go there on Thursdays AND I have butterbeans. In the same vein; if I recommend to someone the fried oyster po-boy at Mr. Johnny’s, I don’t want them to come cryote-ing to me because they didn’t like their red beans!
Go where you will for red beans, I say; those of us that ate Buster Holmes’ beans can’t eat them anywhere else, and he’s long gone just like a turkey through the corn. Opinionated? Me? You bet your blue plate!
Also, lunch requires some ‘splaining. For example, if I tell you that the most beautiful cook works at The Royal Street Gro. and the best sandwich maker works the counter at the Quarter Gro. That doesn’t mean to say that she doesn’t make a dynamite six-inch alligator (she sure does!) or that he’s anything that you’d kick to the curb (his club sandwich! Yes, yes!), it’s just my view; and if you don’t like the news (or views), as they say, feel free to make some of your own.
Speaking of Grocery stores. They are where most of us Quarter Rats excel in culinary savvy. They are where the true heartbeat of local cuisine (we like to call it ‘cookin’, thank you) is found. Ask anyone that’s had the crawfish pasta that is the Friday special at C&C, or the well thought out specials at Matassa’s, the roast beef po-boy at Peoples, the mac and cheese at Verde Mart, the chili cheese fries at the Nellie Deli, the alligator po-boy at The Royal Street (did I mention that cook, or their gumbo?), or the ‘pot cookin’ at J.C.’s
Is the muffelatta better at Progress or Central? Do you opt for the service (?) at Napoleon House? Who’s been to Frank’s lately and why? Ever wonder what natives discuss over coffee? Guess no more, we talk food and the discussions are as passionate as great foreplay, and it’s even sanctioned in groups (God, you give great menu!!!).
Speaking of menus. Have you tried Jaeger’s Back Kitchen? It is probably the best new place to open in a long while, maybe years. The ‘pot cookin’ is second to none, the prices are good and the service friendly. It’ll make you want to throw rocks at the Old Dog, just up the alley, but that’s another story.
If you’ve guessed by now that I have a lot to say on this subject, probably so much to say that I just will not have room for little things like addresses, phone numbers, business hours or the names behind the faces, BINGO! You win the Cuisinart! You’d be amazed how fast a thousand words go by. I’ll just leave it up to you to find out where these gems are; hint: they’re all in the Quarter.
Speaking of the Quarter; this is not to say that I don’t enjoy lunch beyond it’s boundaries. Like the Pho at Nine Happiness, the Pad Thai at Singha, a Menage a Trois at the whorehouse (The Sporting House), or the gumbo at Dubon’s. That’s just not so. Like I said, I just don’t have room to write it ALL.
Mena’s, Oh My Lord, Mena’s; have you ever had a better ham hock with cabbage, boiled potato and cornbread? And it’s just across the alley from Country Flame. What to choose? What to choose? And where to go to go to choose it. How do you choose it? I stand outside 1212 Royal St. for half an hour, rubbernecking the menus of Midnight Express and Mona Lisa’s, like a sailor in a red light district, trying to decide where I’ll get my kicks. They both get my vote for great food and they treat you like family.
The Gumbo Shop, twenty five years ago , had a banner inside the dining room that proclaimed in big letters: “Ici On Mange Bien” that is, “Here One Eats Well”. That’s still true of the Gumbo Shop and, for that matter, my French Quarter. If I had room for another thousand words… I would go on and on and on. But, I don’t.
Next Month: How the President saved the day by moving the French Quarter over there to solve The Mid East Crisis. (“betcha I can tell ya where you got that towel… on yo head! hahahahahahahaha
Jazz Fest Notes from New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Fair Game
Or
The Way That Jazz Goes Down
I’ve come to believe that memory inhibits creativity and spontaneity. I kind of know this from experience; at least I think that I do.
For example, decades ago, a younger me, down on my luck, took a temp job as a dishwasher. I was sent to a club to bust suds.
There I was, up to my elbows in plate scraps, bemoaning my fate, when through the kitchen wall (adjacent to the audience) came the sounds of a gifted jazz artist and… viola, I had an epiphany. I was there, yes I was, (or at that time I was here, the lines kind of get fuzzy). And I was actually being paid to listen to one of the all time great performers of my time!
I remember this, and I remember Ahmad Jamal coming into the kitchen to scam a bite and me feeling special and a part of it all. I remember it like it was yesterday.
From that moment forward, I became a musiholic. I ate, slept, woke, dreamt, and lived music. No artist was too obscure, no venue was out of bounds, no form was ignored, no rolling stone was unturned, and I even put a full Nelson on Willie.
I started to, and still do, listen to Dylan and Dvorjak, The Beatles and Beethoven, Tom Waits, Aretha Franklin, Doctor John, Otis Redding, Neil Young, B.B. King, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson, Clyde McFadder, Eric Satie, Bessie Smith, Peggy Lee, Marvin Gaye, Nat Cole, Elvis, The Dixie Cups, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Vladimir Horowitz, Mendelssohn, Santana, Brubeck and a thousand other artists that you can but hope in your dreams to appreciate.
Listen up! I was actually paid to tend bar and see Miles Davis perform, not once but a half a dozen times (at least)! Top that!
But, I also recall Jazz Fest being twelve dollars, phone calls being a nickel, bus rides being a quarter and my pay being not much more than it is today.
Where does that leave me? I’ll tell you. In a quandary and quagmire. Am I still gonna try my damnedest to get as much time off from work to blow my hard earned to be out there at the Fair Grounds to cram more music into my already overloaded skull? You bet your sweet ass I am!
Do I understand why thirty five years of profit can’t be accounted for so that prices go up, tickets become more inconvenient to procure and Mother Nature more unpredictable, for the privilege of seeing performances by legends of the music world and be actually there when they do their thing? Yep.
Every year I make whatever sacrifice it takes to be there or be square. Sure, there are forces at work beyond my control or understanding that put on the greatest show on earth; but I’ve got to be there! My life, my soul and my heart beats to the sounds of Johnny Vadokovitz (SP) on drums at the Jazz tent. The Dixie Cups and The Dixie Chicks melt my shorts and to be in the Gospel Tent is truly a religious experience. And I’ve got to be in the audience! This year, as in all previous, The New Orleans Jazz And Heritage Festival will not be televised …Jazz Fest is LIVE!
My policy is to get tickets and worm my way into as many and any hours that I can squeeze in, I pour over programs and maps, make the necessary strategic plans to see my favored performers and then upon arrival scap it all and go where the sounds take me. And I travel light, fast and able. There’s gut in my strut, glide in my stride and no shame in my game.
Okay, I hate the car lot in the space where a stage should be, I don’t understand why the beer doesn’t give me a buzz or how come this year they’re going to build bleachers for high rollers to get a better view than us shmucks on ground level. I don’t know why thirty something’s carry poles with flags and travel in packs. I wonder why folks buy tickets and then claim real estate with blankets, folding chairs and tarps and treat you like a trespasser and interloper should you tread on their sacred ground. I also can’t fathom why people carry so much gear with them, like chairs and backpacks and jungle fashion. And you know what? I don’t care.
In my own warped mind, I don’t think that they really get it. This is not Survivor Twelve, it’s the friggin’ Jazz Fest!
Dig this; a few years ago my step was losing its pep, my ocean was losing its motion…my get up and go was getting’ up and goin’. So I spy this rain tent, you know, one of those misting places that you stumble upon and can never find again?
So I go in out of the din and the glare and all of a sudden it gets quiet; I mean real quiet. The fine mist of cool jetted water is not quite wetting me as much as it is centering me. I can hardly make out the shapes of people around me but I’m sensing that there are them and we’re headed in the direction of this light at the end of the tunnel, if you will.
Nobody’s in a hurry, so naturally I’m not either (you know, go with the flow..?)
So, I’m cruisin’ thinking everything’s cool and this light is getting brighter, all of a sudden I can see the forms in front of me and we’re headed for this opening and we get closer and closer and it starts to open up……SHAZAM!!
The sounds of people having a great time, music all around us, the sun is shining and I smell food cooking. My body temperature welcomes the Sun’s rays and I believe, yes I do, that I have just gone to heaven!
Every year I start my Festin’ with a dozen raw oysters and the hoisting of a beer to my loved ones who’ve passed on or merely passed on by and hope that their heaven is at least as good a time as mine will be; and like I said: be there or be square. See you at the Fair.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Fair Game
Or
The Way That Jazz Goes Down
I’ve come to believe that memory inhibits creativity and spontaneity. I kind of know this from experience; at least I think that I do.
For example, decades ago, a younger me, down on my luck, took a temp job as a dishwasher. I was sent to a club to bust suds.
There I was, up to my elbows in plate scraps, bemoaning my fate, when through the kitchen wall (adjacent to the audience) came the sounds of a gifted jazz artist and… viola, I had an epiphany. I was there, yes I was, (or at that time I was here, the lines kind of get fuzzy). And I was actually being paid to listen to one of the all time great performers of my time!
I remember this, and I remember Ahmad Jamal coming into the kitchen to scam a bite and me feeling special and a part of it all. I remember it like it was yesterday.
From that moment forward, I became a musiholic. I ate, slept, woke, dreamt, and lived music. No artist was too obscure, no venue was out of bounds, no form was ignored, no rolling stone was unturned, and I even put a full Nelson on Willie.
I started to, and still do, listen to Dylan and Dvorjak, The Beatles and Beethoven, Tom Waits, Aretha Franklin, Doctor John, Otis Redding, Neil Young, B.B. King, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson, Clyde McFadder, Eric Satie, Bessie Smith, Peggy Lee, Marvin Gaye, Nat Cole, Elvis, The Dixie Cups, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Vladimir Horowitz, Mendelssohn, Santana, Brubeck and a thousand other artists that you can but hope in your dreams to appreciate.
Listen up! I was actually paid to tend bar and see Miles Davis perform, not once but a half a dozen times (at least)! Top that!
But, I also recall Jazz Fest being twelve dollars, phone calls being a nickel, bus rides being a quarter and my pay being not much more than it is today.
Where does that leave me? I’ll tell you. In a quandary and quagmire. Am I still gonna try my damnedest to get as much time off from work to blow my hard earned to be out there at the Fair Grounds to cram more music into my already overloaded skull? You bet your sweet ass I am!
Do I understand why thirty five years of profit can’t be accounted for so that prices go up, tickets become more inconvenient to procure and Mother Nature more unpredictable, for the privilege of seeing performances by legends of the music world and be actually there when they do their thing? Yep.
Every year I make whatever sacrifice it takes to be there or be square. Sure, there are forces at work beyond my control or understanding that put on the greatest show on earth; but I’ve got to be there! My life, my soul and my heart beats to the sounds of Johnny Vadokovitz (SP) on drums at the Jazz tent. The Dixie Cups and The Dixie Chicks melt my shorts and to be in the Gospel Tent is truly a religious experience. And I’ve got to be in the audience! This year, as in all previous, The New Orleans Jazz And Heritage Festival will not be televised …Jazz Fest is LIVE!
My policy is to get tickets and worm my way into as many and any hours that I can squeeze in, I pour over programs and maps, make the necessary strategic plans to see my favored performers and then upon arrival scap it all and go where the sounds take me. And I travel light, fast and able. There’s gut in my strut, glide in my stride and no shame in my game.
Okay, I hate the car lot in the space where a stage should be, I don’t understand why the beer doesn’t give me a buzz or how come this year they’re going to build bleachers for high rollers to get a better view than us shmucks on ground level. I don’t know why thirty something’s carry poles with flags and travel in packs. I wonder why folks buy tickets and then claim real estate with blankets, folding chairs and tarps and treat you like a trespasser and interloper should you tread on their sacred ground. I also can’t fathom why people carry so much gear with them, like chairs and backpacks and jungle fashion. And you know what? I don’t care.
In my own warped mind, I don’t think that they really get it. This is not Survivor Twelve, it’s the friggin’ Jazz Fest!
Dig this; a few years ago my step was losing its pep, my ocean was losing its motion…my get up and go was getting’ up and goin’. So I spy this rain tent, you know, one of those misting places that you stumble upon and can never find again?
So I go in out of the din and the glare and all of a sudden it gets quiet; I mean real quiet. The fine mist of cool jetted water is not quite wetting me as much as it is centering me. I can hardly make out the shapes of people around me but I’m sensing that there are them and we’re headed in the direction of this light at the end of the tunnel, if you will.
Nobody’s in a hurry, so naturally I’m not either (you know, go with the flow..?)
So, I’m cruisin’ thinking everything’s cool and this light is getting brighter, all of a sudden I can see the forms in front of me and we’re headed for this opening and we get closer and closer and it starts to open up……SHAZAM!!
The sounds of people having a great time, music all around us, the sun is shining and I smell food cooking. My body temperature welcomes the Sun’s rays and I believe, yes I do, that I have just gone to heaven!
Every year I start my Festin’ with a dozen raw oysters and the hoisting of a beer to my loved ones who’ve passed on or merely passed on by and hope that their heaven is at least as good a time as mine will be; and like I said: be there or be square. See you at the Fair.
Buddhism in New Orleans
Po boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Altered States
Or
Saint Expedite Where Are You?
Kumi Maitreya was an avatar and the last incarnation of the Buddha. If you believe it, it is so.
If you are not aware of whom Kumi was, you are not aware of a slice of New Orleans history that most grownups wish you to ignore. I say that because it was the grownups that had the most trouble with the Maitreyans. Then as now, grownups rule the world.
Incidentally, my spell check just wanted me to change Maitreyans to Martians, truly I have a grown up spell check.
Anyway, Kumi Maitreya was an ordinary Moss St. housewife here, named Geraldine Hooper, when somehow she achieved a state of spiritual enlightenment. Believe what you will; but, she formed a tribe of young followers from the fringes of society that for a time was in charge of the French Quarter. She could, and did, look within people’s souls and tell them the sound of their vibration and give it back to them as their one true name. Names like Ravi, Eldra, Elfren, Amzie, Angelica, Kutami, Dorje (yours truly), and Abraxsas.
She taught that since the Universe was infinite, everywhere (including ourselves) was, in fact, The Center of the Universe. And where exactly would God live? Exactly, in The Center of the Universe, which meant that God lived inside of all of us. Taking that thought a little further, we come to the conclusion that our bodies are temples, we are all ministers and our homes are churches. This latter conclusion had something to do with the law not being able to bust churches just because our ‘sacrament’ was a substance that was illegal in the grownup world (namely, LSD). It all made sense to me.
And so for a time, The French Quarter streets rang with the sounds of “OIA!” (pronounced OH EE AH!!) which is the sound of a positive vibration; and, the symbol of the Cardinal Cross was seen everywhere.
Kumi also taught us that war was wrong, that the Government was in fact our servants and that each of us should have an altar in our living spaces. That still makes sense to me. There was also a lot of drumming and dancing, if I recall correctly.
I have, and have had, altars at the many places that I have called home, call it a hangover from the old days. My altar is the last thing I look at before entering the asylum (the outside world) and my altar greets me when I am successfully able to make it back home from the outside world (where the crazy people live).
My altar is two and a half feet wide and goes up to a nine foot ceiling, it consists of seven levels, each level full is of holy (as I see them) articles.
On the top level is a portrait of Saint Expedite by local artist Shmeula that I bought at Grace Note, a small but perfect shop at nine hundred Royal St. The portrait depicts an aura-ed African American male with the caption “Please Help Us Immediately!”
According to legend (which as we know is not fact) St. Expedite is a New Orleans saint. It seems that we were having trouble, in the early days, getting statuary in from Europe to our fast growing number of churches being built here. Someone over there stamped one of the crates EXPEDITE, and when it was opened here, they naturally thought that it was the name of the saint. The statue is in the Our Lady Of Guadalupe Church on Rampart and Conti Street, which also houses the Shrine Of St. Jude (patron saint of lost causes).
Also on my altar are many pictures of various saints, the fender of a bike once stolen from me, three Mexican kewpie dolls named Lupe, Rosa and Pilar, silver quarters, a figurine of Batman that I found face down on Bourbon Street, dollar bills that I have made wishes on and a book titled ‘The Making Of Black Revolutionaries’ by James Forman.
There’s also a rubber snake, a sheet of stamps with the face of Audrey Hepburn on them, a photo of my dog Trudy who died, a box of marionette clown heads and a full nativity scene using everything but holy statuettes. A bottle with holy water in it (plucked from the trash), a ceramic Mayan god, tarot cards, The Book of Runes and a video made by the Dali Lama.
A Zippo lighter, a pocketknife, candles, incense, joss paper, alcohol, hot pepper sauce, photos of friends and the obituary of a close working companion. A SouthEast Asian broom, a bingo card, a head of garlic, rosaries and crucifixes. I’ve got a bottle of Holt’s Chill Tonic, the eyes of Buddha, playing cards, alligators, elephants, sea shells, safety pins, a Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle opener and a PBR tap pull. There’s also a hula dancer, some ververte weed, an empty bottle of cologne that my daughter gave me at fourteen that I saved the last of it until she married this year at twenty seven and a bear shaped container with about an inch of golden syrup that I greet each day upon reentering (“hi honey, I’m home!”). Am I superstitious? I don’t think so, a little excessive maybe, but not superstitious (did I mention the voodoo doll?).
Maitreyans believe that freedom and joy are essential components of daily life and that it is important to live a perfect life right now, not some time in the future. So what became of the Maitreyans? Well, you may call it the struggle of good against evil and you might say that, as Maitreyans, we got our asses kicked.
What remains of the Maitreyans, I don’t know. I’ve only connected with a handful in the last five or six years. I guess they’re out there somewhere. Kumi has gone on to whatever she was meant to do in her next life (if she didn’t make it to nirvana). And I sit at a keyboard wondering how I spent that many years high on life and why we couldn’t make more of a go of it. I guess once you’ve created that many centers of the Universe; it would be hard to get them to stick together. OIA!
By
Phil LaMancusa
Altered States
Or
Saint Expedite Where Are You?
Kumi Maitreya was an avatar and the last incarnation of the Buddha. If you believe it, it is so.
If you are not aware of whom Kumi was, you are not aware of a slice of New Orleans history that most grownups wish you to ignore. I say that because it was the grownups that had the most trouble with the Maitreyans. Then as now, grownups rule the world.
Incidentally, my spell check just wanted me to change Maitreyans to Martians, truly I have a grown up spell check.
Anyway, Kumi Maitreya was an ordinary Moss St. housewife here, named Geraldine Hooper, when somehow she achieved a state of spiritual enlightenment. Believe what you will; but, she formed a tribe of young followers from the fringes of society that for a time was in charge of the French Quarter. She could, and did, look within people’s souls and tell them the sound of their vibration and give it back to them as their one true name. Names like Ravi, Eldra, Elfren, Amzie, Angelica, Kutami, Dorje (yours truly), and Abraxsas.
She taught that since the Universe was infinite, everywhere (including ourselves) was, in fact, The Center of the Universe. And where exactly would God live? Exactly, in The Center of the Universe, which meant that God lived inside of all of us. Taking that thought a little further, we come to the conclusion that our bodies are temples, we are all ministers and our homes are churches. This latter conclusion had something to do with the law not being able to bust churches just because our ‘sacrament’ was a substance that was illegal in the grownup world (namely, LSD). It all made sense to me.
And so for a time, The French Quarter streets rang with the sounds of “OIA!” (pronounced OH EE AH!!) which is the sound of a positive vibration; and, the symbol of the Cardinal Cross was seen everywhere.
Kumi also taught us that war was wrong, that the Government was in fact our servants and that each of us should have an altar in our living spaces. That still makes sense to me. There was also a lot of drumming and dancing, if I recall correctly.
I have, and have had, altars at the many places that I have called home, call it a hangover from the old days. My altar is the last thing I look at before entering the asylum (the outside world) and my altar greets me when I am successfully able to make it back home from the outside world (where the crazy people live).
My altar is two and a half feet wide and goes up to a nine foot ceiling, it consists of seven levels, each level full is of holy (as I see them) articles.
On the top level is a portrait of Saint Expedite by local artist Shmeula that I bought at Grace Note, a small but perfect shop at nine hundred Royal St. The portrait depicts an aura-ed African American male with the caption “Please Help Us Immediately!”
According to legend (which as we know is not fact) St. Expedite is a New Orleans saint. It seems that we were having trouble, in the early days, getting statuary in from Europe to our fast growing number of churches being built here. Someone over there stamped one of the crates EXPEDITE, and when it was opened here, they naturally thought that it was the name of the saint. The statue is in the Our Lady Of Guadalupe Church on Rampart and Conti Street, which also houses the Shrine Of St. Jude (patron saint of lost causes).
Also on my altar are many pictures of various saints, the fender of a bike once stolen from me, three Mexican kewpie dolls named Lupe, Rosa and Pilar, silver quarters, a figurine of Batman that I found face down on Bourbon Street, dollar bills that I have made wishes on and a book titled ‘The Making Of Black Revolutionaries’ by James Forman.
There’s also a rubber snake, a sheet of stamps with the face of Audrey Hepburn on them, a photo of my dog Trudy who died, a box of marionette clown heads and a full nativity scene using everything but holy statuettes. A bottle with holy water in it (plucked from the trash), a ceramic Mayan god, tarot cards, The Book of Runes and a video made by the Dali Lama.
A Zippo lighter, a pocketknife, candles, incense, joss paper, alcohol, hot pepper sauce, photos of friends and the obituary of a close working companion. A SouthEast Asian broom, a bingo card, a head of garlic, rosaries and crucifixes. I’ve got a bottle of Holt’s Chill Tonic, the eyes of Buddha, playing cards, alligators, elephants, sea shells, safety pins, a Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle opener and a PBR tap pull. There’s also a hula dancer, some ververte weed, an empty bottle of cologne that my daughter gave me at fourteen that I saved the last of it until she married this year at twenty seven and a bear shaped container with about an inch of golden syrup that I greet each day upon reentering (“hi honey, I’m home!”). Am I superstitious? I don’t think so, a little excessive maybe, but not superstitious (did I mention the voodoo doll?).
Maitreyans believe that freedom and joy are essential components of daily life and that it is important to live a perfect life right now, not some time in the future. So what became of the Maitreyans? Well, you may call it the struggle of good against evil and you might say that, as Maitreyans, we got our asses kicked.
What remains of the Maitreyans, I don’t know. I’ve only connected with a handful in the last five or six years. I guess they’re out there somewhere. Kumi has gone on to whatever she was meant to do in her next life (if she didn’t make it to nirvana). And I sit at a keyboard wondering how I spent that many years high on life and why we couldn’t make more of a go of it. I guess once you’ve created that many centers of the Universe; it would be hard to get them to stick together. OIA!
more lottery dreams in New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
One For The Road
Or
Wish Us Luck!
You know, it takes a great man to realize when the time is ripe and right to change the fundamental principles of his life.
I’m not talking about things like explaining my extensive ‘bald spot’ as a solar panel to my sexuality or my claim to women that I am actually a lesbian trapped in a man’s body. I’m talking, you know, fundamental principles like swearing allegiance to your after shave (Old Spice), hair tonic (Vitalis) and whether you want your toilet paper with the sheets rolling over or under (under, definitely UNDER)! Or even the big one, (thanks to Buddy Nordan) the drive to know the difference between good and evil and how to break into show business. I am speaking of what exactly I will do when I hit the Lottery.
True Lottery players never think in terms of ‘if’ they will hit the big one, only ‘when’. Hithertofore (I love that word) I was intrigued by thoughts lewd and lascivious, loud or lament-full, ludicrous or lucrative. I promised the Gods that I would be thankful and true, that I would help mankind and only use the dough for good. It hasn’t worked so far. I finally settled on a great umbrella outcome of my windfall: I would reward my friends and punish my enemies. This fundamental principle has been the guiding light of my eventual economical freedom. This too has not panned out… thus far.
Well, I’ve got a new one. I am going to open up one hundred bars; you know palaces of pleasure, institutions for imbibing, homes of hangovers (contracted and cured), altars dedicated to alcohol. But now, I am not thinking locally… I am dreaming globally. I am not thinking generic… I am dreaming specific. I want to give Pabst Blue Ribbon to the world!
Recently I was given a book by one of my students, the book is One Hundred Great Wonders Of The World. I thought that, as a goal, I should visit each and every one of these wonders, and, that I could do, easily, when I hit the Lottery (Powerball—whatever). Can do, will do; but, what in the name of God’s Balls (or as the English say “Od’s Bodkin) would I drink when I got there?
Okay, what I need is to be able to have my favorite drink (Pabst Blue Ribbon) available at each stop. Okay, suppose that I am a Gazillionaire or a Bazillionaire? Okay, I could have brewskis delivered where I wanted them. What about the rest of you?
Well hey, I got the bucks, why not open stands where you can tip back a cold one too (happy hour five to seven)?
So, Eiffel Tower is easy, likewise Yosemite, Grand Canyon and the Golden Gate Bridge. But how about The Great Fjords? How about The Nile River? How about Versailles? Mount Fuji? Angor Wat? You can bet your sweet Bippy that there no frosty mug at Stonehenge, Volcanic Iceland or Carargue! Forget about the Matterhorn and there’s no PBR on the Danube! And it’s no joke that you can die of thirst on the Sahara.
Listen to this: “Madagascar is an island of staggering biological diversity. When the island ripped away from Africa 165 million years ago, animals and plants continued to evolve without interference from outside” Consider visiting an island that is able to get away from a continent. Consider the people that you know that would chew their arm off to get free of that one night stand that they stupidly went home with…the coyote (much worse than an ordinary dog). Consider doing that, or visiting there without a cold one in a frosty mug. To me it’s plainly unthinkable.
Here’s other places that you’d not think of visiting without a beer handy: Giant’s Causeway, Edinburgh Castle, Versailles, The Grand Canal, Peter’s Basilica, Neuschwanstein, or Pamukkale. They scream for a great beer as a chaser. How about The Great Wall, The leaning Tower of Pisa, The Colosseseum or The Parthenon. Unimaginable without an icey cold PBR!
The mind reels with names such as: The Kremlin, Alhambra, The Temple Of Karnak, Mount Kilimanjaro, The Okavango Delta and Teotihuacan. My spellcheck has just had a meltdown.
Anyway, what I would do is fly in my private plane and view these wonders, have a cool one while my jets are cooling and, after dining locally, plan my next destination. I could do this until the whole hundred were seen. All the while I would be mapping out the list of a hundred more ‘Not Quite Ready For The Top One Hundred Wonder’ locations. Places like Dogpatch, Gasoline Alley, Abe’s Barbecue, The Shrine Of Donald Freeman’s Favorite Tweezers or the location of the world’s biggest crouton.
I’d like to visit an escargot ranch at roundup time, the place where they put them tiny stickers on tomatoes and a Survivor Island (where I would kick everybody off).
How about going to The North Pole to see if Santa is really there, tracking down The Easter Bunny (does he really live on Easter Island?) or going to the place where God’s final message to mankind is:
(“SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE”)?
Oh, the places we could see! The things that we could find out: what makes an elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the musty must, what makes a muskrat guard his musk, what makes a king out of a slave, what makes a flag to wave, what makes a Hottentot so hot and who put the ape in apricot? And: what do they got that we ain’t got? It certainly won’t be the good old dough ray me!
Who is we? Why it’s all my friends that will be along for the ride, laughin’ and a scratchin’ and a drinkin’ some beer!
What about my enimies? Why… we’ll send them postcards! Who knows what evil lives in the hearts of man? The Shadow do…Hahahahahahahah!
By
Phil LaMancusa
One For The Road
Or
Wish Us Luck!
You know, it takes a great man to realize when the time is ripe and right to change the fundamental principles of his life.
I’m not talking about things like explaining my extensive ‘bald spot’ as a solar panel to my sexuality or my claim to women that I am actually a lesbian trapped in a man’s body. I’m talking, you know, fundamental principles like swearing allegiance to your after shave (Old Spice), hair tonic (Vitalis) and whether you want your toilet paper with the sheets rolling over or under (under, definitely UNDER)! Or even the big one, (thanks to Buddy Nordan) the drive to know the difference between good and evil and how to break into show business. I am speaking of what exactly I will do when I hit the Lottery.
True Lottery players never think in terms of ‘if’ they will hit the big one, only ‘when’. Hithertofore (I love that word) I was intrigued by thoughts lewd and lascivious, loud or lament-full, ludicrous or lucrative. I promised the Gods that I would be thankful and true, that I would help mankind and only use the dough for good. It hasn’t worked so far. I finally settled on a great umbrella outcome of my windfall: I would reward my friends and punish my enemies. This fundamental principle has been the guiding light of my eventual economical freedom. This too has not panned out… thus far.
Well, I’ve got a new one. I am going to open up one hundred bars; you know palaces of pleasure, institutions for imbibing, homes of hangovers (contracted and cured), altars dedicated to alcohol. But now, I am not thinking locally… I am dreaming globally. I am not thinking generic… I am dreaming specific. I want to give Pabst Blue Ribbon to the world!
Recently I was given a book by one of my students, the book is One Hundred Great Wonders Of The World. I thought that, as a goal, I should visit each and every one of these wonders, and, that I could do, easily, when I hit the Lottery (Powerball—whatever). Can do, will do; but, what in the name of God’s Balls (or as the English say “Od’s Bodkin) would I drink when I got there?
Okay, what I need is to be able to have my favorite drink (Pabst Blue Ribbon) available at each stop. Okay, suppose that I am a Gazillionaire or a Bazillionaire? Okay, I could have brewskis delivered where I wanted them. What about the rest of you?
Well hey, I got the bucks, why not open stands where you can tip back a cold one too (happy hour five to seven)?
So, Eiffel Tower is easy, likewise Yosemite, Grand Canyon and the Golden Gate Bridge. But how about The Great Fjords? How about The Nile River? How about Versailles? Mount Fuji? Angor Wat? You can bet your sweet Bippy that there no frosty mug at Stonehenge, Volcanic Iceland or Carargue! Forget about the Matterhorn and there’s no PBR on the Danube! And it’s no joke that you can die of thirst on the Sahara.
Listen to this: “Madagascar is an island of staggering biological diversity. When the island ripped away from Africa 165 million years ago, animals and plants continued to evolve without interference from outside” Consider visiting an island that is able to get away from a continent. Consider the people that you know that would chew their arm off to get free of that one night stand that they stupidly went home with…the coyote (much worse than an ordinary dog). Consider doing that, or visiting there without a cold one in a frosty mug. To me it’s plainly unthinkable.
Here’s other places that you’d not think of visiting without a beer handy: Giant’s Causeway, Edinburgh Castle, Versailles, The Grand Canal, Peter’s Basilica, Neuschwanstein, or Pamukkale. They scream for a great beer as a chaser. How about The Great Wall, The leaning Tower of Pisa, The Colosseseum or The Parthenon. Unimaginable without an icey cold PBR!
The mind reels with names such as: The Kremlin, Alhambra, The Temple Of Karnak, Mount Kilimanjaro, The Okavango Delta and Teotihuacan. My spellcheck has just had a meltdown.
Anyway, what I would do is fly in my private plane and view these wonders, have a cool one while my jets are cooling and, after dining locally, plan my next destination. I could do this until the whole hundred were seen. All the while I would be mapping out the list of a hundred more ‘Not Quite Ready For The Top One Hundred Wonder’ locations. Places like Dogpatch, Gasoline Alley, Abe’s Barbecue, The Shrine Of Donald Freeman’s Favorite Tweezers or the location of the world’s biggest crouton.
I’d like to visit an escargot ranch at roundup time, the place where they put them tiny stickers on tomatoes and a Survivor Island (where I would kick everybody off).
How about going to The North Pole to see if Santa is really there, tracking down The Easter Bunny (does he really live on Easter Island?) or going to the place where God’s final message to mankind is:
(“SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE”)?
Oh, the places we could see! The things that we could find out: what makes an elephant charge his tusk in the misty mist or the musty must, what makes a muskrat guard his musk, what makes a king out of a slave, what makes a flag to wave, what makes a Hottentot so hot and who put the ape in apricot? And: what do they got that we ain’t got? It certainly won’t be the good old dough ray me!
Who is we? Why it’s all my friends that will be along for the ride, laughin’ and a scratchin’ and a drinkin’ some beer!
What about my enimies? Why… we’ll send them postcards! Who knows what evil lives in the hearts of man? The Shadow do…Hahahahahahahah!
Public transportation in New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Saint Charles Folly
Or
There’s Nuthin’ Happening Here
To all my friends that haven’t seen me in a while: I’ve taken employment uptown. I know, I must be nuts, but it’s a good job and only has two drawbacks. 1. It takes me away from my beloved French Quarter many hours a day and (b) having given up private transportation; I must rely on public.
Rely probably isn’t the operative word here. One cannot rely on something as nebulous as a trolley schedule and, at the end of the day (and the beginning and middle), those rumbling sardine cans rarely keep a schedule that logic and reason can fathom. Also, I seem to posses the unique talent for getting to the corner just in time to see the darn thing leave without me. Perfect.
Waiting for the next car (that’s what they call trolleys) can be maddening, especially in inclement weather and after dark when there’s no light to read by. It’s an especial challenge when I see from three to eight of the beasts going in the opposite direction before one comes going my way. Sometimes the fifteen minutes between cars, that the company promises, turns into forty-five or more.
Try waiting thirty minutes, watching one uptown car after another go by, it’s raining, there’s no shelter, your not dressed properly for the sudden chill and the car that stops for you explains that he’s only going to Lee Circle. And another twenty minutes passes before you can catch one going your way and finally get out of the wet and the cold. It borders on cruel and unusual punishment.
It seems to me, in my pea-brained intelligence, that, if we can time the movement of heaven, earth and the very stars themselves, then running a Municipal Railway shouldn’t be rocket surgery. Needless to say, I have a lot of time to think as I undertake my daily odysseys.
I was thinking about how, in the old days, you could stick out your thumb and easily catch a ride; and how, that ride would be more often than not with a longhair like you. Not so today.
Well, what happened to those happy hippies in their flying Volkswagens, with peace and ecology stickers, playing loud Rock and Roll heralding the coming revolution and vows to save the world with nothing more than the love in our hearts? I’ll tell you. At least fifty-one percent of them went over to the dark side.
Think about it and humor an old fart. In the sixties and seventies we didn’t just disapprove of war, ecological suicide and greed: we marched against it! We didn’t just sit back and let the status quo get off with easy victories at the polls we protested!
Our music told us that we had “questions about hate and death and war”, and that the Times They Were A Changin’ because we knew that we were on the Eve Of Destruction and that “it’s been a long time comin’ but I know a change is gonna come”. Each group was musically subversive.
A lot of us sat in at lunch counters, refused to sit in the back of the bus, sang songs and carried signs. A lot of us got our asses kicked and some lost their lives; where are all those children now? I’ll tell you.
They work for special interest groups that rape and rip off our planet and people. They’ve formed religious coalitions that espouse an expeditious hastening to their heavenly home that can come only after the destruction of our planet and all of it’s resources. And some, having lost all the fight in them, sit by bathed in ennui and complacency and allow it to happen without using their hard won vote and voice to change things. They never dare speak a word aloud about any insanity.
How many of you know that this administration refuses to accept and comply with other governments that are concerned with global warning? How many know about human slavery still existing, both economically and physically?
How many of you read about genocide, hunger, ignorance, poverty, violence and hatred and sit by, not raising a voice? How many of you know that we are destroying the only planet we have in the name of ‘economic stability’?
We murder animals and eat them. We buy gas-guzzlers for the tax incentives while the government reaps huge profits on the tariffs that they impose on gasoline sales. We roll finely shredded vegetable matter in thin paper, place it in our mouths, light it on fire and die of cancer. CEOs reap millions while children go to sleep hungry…in America!
Another example: if you own a car (at least in my neighborhood) you pay out the wazoo for gas, insurance and upkeep. Furthermore, you run the risk of being given tickets by parking Nazis that don’t even work for your city. Towing, stealing, breaking and entering, keying, antenna damage and that jerk from out of state that uses it for a urinal or worse, some homeless or street person using your bumper for a latrine are also considerations. For what? So you can go to work and work and work; without health benefits, equal pay for equal work, a threat on your Social Security and the possibility of your kid coming home maimed or wounded as a reward for fighting in a war that we started? In my day, ‘Supporting The Troops’ meant ‘Bring Them Home!’
Chase the American Dream like a dog chases its tail and hope only that you live long enough to see your kids through college and your house paid for and, I’ll tell you what. You have violated everything that we fought for forty years and more ago: the responsibility of changing the world for the better.
I have no pension, no benefits, no 401K and I’ll probably pay rent for the rest of my life. Yet I still listen to the old music; and yes, I’m the guy waiting for the trolley in the rain. What’s more; if I ain’t got nuthin’ nice say… I’ll say it anyway!
By
Phil LaMancusa
Saint Charles Folly
Or
There’s Nuthin’ Happening Here
To all my friends that haven’t seen me in a while: I’ve taken employment uptown. I know, I must be nuts, but it’s a good job and only has two drawbacks. 1. It takes me away from my beloved French Quarter many hours a day and (b) having given up private transportation; I must rely on public.
Rely probably isn’t the operative word here. One cannot rely on something as nebulous as a trolley schedule and, at the end of the day (and the beginning and middle), those rumbling sardine cans rarely keep a schedule that logic and reason can fathom. Also, I seem to posses the unique talent for getting to the corner just in time to see the darn thing leave without me. Perfect.
Waiting for the next car (that’s what they call trolleys) can be maddening, especially in inclement weather and after dark when there’s no light to read by. It’s an especial challenge when I see from three to eight of the beasts going in the opposite direction before one comes going my way. Sometimes the fifteen minutes between cars, that the company promises, turns into forty-five or more.
Try waiting thirty minutes, watching one uptown car after another go by, it’s raining, there’s no shelter, your not dressed properly for the sudden chill and the car that stops for you explains that he’s only going to Lee Circle. And another twenty minutes passes before you can catch one going your way and finally get out of the wet and the cold. It borders on cruel and unusual punishment.
It seems to me, in my pea-brained intelligence, that, if we can time the movement of heaven, earth and the very stars themselves, then running a Municipal Railway shouldn’t be rocket surgery. Needless to say, I have a lot of time to think as I undertake my daily odysseys.
I was thinking about how, in the old days, you could stick out your thumb and easily catch a ride; and how, that ride would be more often than not with a longhair like you. Not so today.
Well, what happened to those happy hippies in their flying Volkswagens, with peace and ecology stickers, playing loud Rock and Roll heralding the coming revolution and vows to save the world with nothing more than the love in our hearts? I’ll tell you. At least fifty-one percent of them went over to the dark side.
Think about it and humor an old fart. In the sixties and seventies we didn’t just disapprove of war, ecological suicide and greed: we marched against it! We didn’t just sit back and let the status quo get off with easy victories at the polls we protested!
Our music told us that we had “questions about hate and death and war”, and that the Times They Were A Changin’ because we knew that we were on the Eve Of Destruction and that “it’s been a long time comin’ but I know a change is gonna come”. Each group was musically subversive.
A lot of us sat in at lunch counters, refused to sit in the back of the bus, sang songs and carried signs. A lot of us got our asses kicked and some lost their lives; where are all those children now? I’ll tell you.
They work for special interest groups that rape and rip off our planet and people. They’ve formed religious coalitions that espouse an expeditious hastening to their heavenly home that can come only after the destruction of our planet and all of it’s resources. And some, having lost all the fight in them, sit by bathed in ennui and complacency and allow it to happen without using their hard won vote and voice to change things. They never dare speak a word aloud about any insanity.
How many of you know that this administration refuses to accept and comply with other governments that are concerned with global warning? How many know about human slavery still existing, both economically and physically?
How many of you read about genocide, hunger, ignorance, poverty, violence and hatred and sit by, not raising a voice? How many of you know that we are destroying the only planet we have in the name of ‘economic stability’?
We murder animals and eat them. We buy gas-guzzlers for the tax incentives while the government reaps huge profits on the tariffs that they impose on gasoline sales. We roll finely shredded vegetable matter in thin paper, place it in our mouths, light it on fire and die of cancer. CEOs reap millions while children go to sleep hungry…in America!
Another example: if you own a car (at least in my neighborhood) you pay out the wazoo for gas, insurance and upkeep. Furthermore, you run the risk of being given tickets by parking Nazis that don’t even work for your city. Towing, stealing, breaking and entering, keying, antenna damage and that jerk from out of state that uses it for a urinal or worse, some homeless or street person using your bumper for a latrine are also considerations. For what? So you can go to work and work and work; without health benefits, equal pay for equal work, a threat on your Social Security and the possibility of your kid coming home maimed or wounded as a reward for fighting in a war that we started? In my day, ‘Supporting The Troops’ meant ‘Bring Them Home!’
Chase the American Dream like a dog chases its tail and hope only that you live long enough to see your kids through college and your house paid for and, I’ll tell you what. You have violated everything that we fought for forty years and more ago: the responsibility of changing the world for the better.
I have no pension, no benefits, no 401K and I’ll probably pay rent for the rest of my life. Yet I still listen to the old music; and yes, I’m the guy waiting for the trolley in the rain. What’s more; if I ain’t got nuthin’ nice say… I’ll say it anyway!
Lottery dreams in New Orleans
Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Good Living
Or
Land Of A Thousand Dances
I returned from vacation with a deadline looming, no beer in the fridge, the bank’s ATM broken (“sorry for the inconvenience”) and a report that while I was gone my dog had eaten twenty-five pounds of kibble in one sitting. I would have had more money except for the ransom for the alcoholic beverages we had to pay in the airport and on the plane.
We went to America on our holiday, California specifically and amazingly, aside from us all having bad teeth and none of us speaking correct English here, we’re much the same people. And though they don’t say hello on the street to strangers, they’re a lot more polite when you get to know them. They don’t seem to mind paying four seventy-five for a Guinness draft or three seventy-five for a Corona in a bar, but, what the hey, the wine deals more than make up for it. Go figure.
One of the first purchases I made upon returning (after beer, of course) was a Lotto ticket, and a Powerball. Weezel has convinced me that it only takes one ticket to win and I think I procrastinate checking my numbers so that I can make believe that I’m a ga-zillionaire just for a little bit.
I’ve been playing the numbers game for decades. I find it better than insurance. With insurance, you’re betting against yourself and hoping that you’ll lose; with the lottery, at least you’re betting for yourself and hoping that you win. Does that make as much sense to you as it does to me?
Invariably I play the ‘what I’m gonna do with the money’ game while I wait to check the results. The first thing I think of is rewarding my friends and punishing my enemies, that idea always makes me feel good. There was a study done recently indicating that people actually feel good when they do things like that. To me, it doesn’t take a study.
I’ve often toyed with the idea of using my windfall to get all the love that money can buy; but I concluded that, once rich, I’d be electric!! Especially after my bodywork was completed, you know: hair, teeth eyebrows and buns and abs of steel. Nah, I’d probably buy a new bike instead.
Then I think of traveling. You know, the world is full of places that I haven’t seen…and want to. I could have money shipped to different locations around the globe and travel for the rest of my natural life. Hell, I’d be so filthy, stinking rich: I could afford to keep traveling after I bit the big one. Nepal, Venice, Rome (Italy not Georgia), Japan, Nova Scotia, where ever! There he goes!
And speaking of the long walk, the Big Chill, and the buying of the farm: I could afford, while I’m here, to have the best health care in the world almost into immortality! Think about it! Diet, exercise (read personal trainer here) and meditation on the infinite donut that we call our inner and outer universe. I could afford the best dentist. I’d be pretty and witty and bright. One thing that I do know; I’d never work another day in my life!
Or would I? I could take part of my dough and really trick out some business that I could sink my teeth into, like a bakery, a book store, a swanky bistro, a theater, my own museum or even a monthly literary publication! I could produce films, beauty pageants or music talent. I could fire Donald! I could have my own hotel/motel/bed and breakfast chain. A drive-in theater. Or not.
I could use my money to do good in the world, sobering thought that. Think of all the underprivileged, disenfranchised, down trodden and disadvantaged peoples, families and cultures that could use my resources for schools, hospitals or roads. It brings a tear to my eye to think that even in this great country of ours children go to bed hungry while we send eighty-seven billion dollars to help rebuild a country that we were instrumental in destroying, but that’s another story.
I think maybe that I could head up a gigantic law firm, prosecute bad guys, track down deadbeats, deal out justice. Suppose some guy has been mistreating his family, his wife and kids, late on child support? Supposing I just send somebody out to just kick his ass and some sense into his head? Suppose I take somebody that abuses animals, stages dogfights, cockfights, buggy driving? Suppose I send them over to Palestine and the only job that they can get is to be an ambulance driver? Hmmm?
Then again, I could just retire; buy some small South American country and set myself up as King, Emperor, and Protector. I could abolish despair, injustice and neglect. It’s not rocket surgery, you know. Lift them up by their bootstraps, train them all to be hairdressers or phone sanitizers. Maybe receptionists or dental hygienists. The possibilities are endless.
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about and in thinking about it, it’s worth doing my next column about (and just in time too). Are you sure that you are qualified to vote in the presidential election? Think about it. You’re either too young, too old or too dumb to be taking part in the making of a decision that’s going to affect my life for the next four years. I’m going to talk in length about it next month, just under the wire before election. Even though only about half of the adults that are qualified to vote do, I don’t want some uninformed, ABB or ‘with us or for terrorism’ schmuck taking me where no man has gone before. We’re in bad enough shape as it is.
That is unless I win the lottery before then. Have I told you my theory of rewarding my friends and punishing my enemies? Want to be my friend?
By
Phil LaMancusa
Good Living
Or
Land Of A Thousand Dances
I returned from vacation with a deadline looming, no beer in the fridge, the bank’s ATM broken (“sorry for the inconvenience”) and a report that while I was gone my dog had eaten twenty-five pounds of kibble in one sitting. I would have had more money except for the ransom for the alcoholic beverages we had to pay in the airport and on the plane.
We went to America on our holiday, California specifically and amazingly, aside from us all having bad teeth and none of us speaking correct English here, we’re much the same people. And though they don’t say hello on the street to strangers, they’re a lot more polite when you get to know them. They don’t seem to mind paying four seventy-five for a Guinness draft or three seventy-five for a Corona in a bar, but, what the hey, the wine deals more than make up for it. Go figure.
One of the first purchases I made upon returning (after beer, of course) was a Lotto ticket, and a Powerball. Weezel has convinced me that it only takes one ticket to win and I think I procrastinate checking my numbers so that I can make believe that I’m a ga-zillionaire just for a little bit.
I’ve been playing the numbers game for decades. I find it better than insurance. With insurance, you’re betting against yourself and hoping that you’ll lose; with the lottery, at least you’re betting for yourself and hoping that you win. Does that make as much sense to you as it does to me?
Invariably I play the ‘what I’m gonna do with the money’ game while I wait to check the results. The first thing I think of is rewarding my friends and punishing my enemies, that idea always makes me feel good. There was a study done recently indicating that people actually feel good when they do things like that. To me, it doesn’t take a study.
I’ve often toyed with the idea of using my windfall to get all the love that money can buy; but I concluded that, once rich, I’d be electric!! Especially after my bodywork was completed, you know: hair, teeth eyebrows and buns and abs of steel. Nah, I’d probably buy a new bike instead.
Then I think of traveling. You know, the world is full of places that I haven’t seen…and want to. I could have money shipped to different locations around the globe and travel for the rest of my natural life. Hell, I’d be so filthy, stinking rich: I could afford to keep traveling after I bit the big one. Nepal, Venice, Rome (Italy not Georgia), Japan, Nova Scotia, where ever! There he goes!
And speaking of the long walk, the Big Chill, and the buying of the farm: I could afford, while I’m here, to have the best health care in the world almost into immortality! Think about it! Diet, exercise (read personal trainer here) and meditation on the infinite donut that we call our inner and outer universe. I could afford the best dentist. I’d be pretty and witty and bright. One thing that I do know; I’d never work another day in my life!
Or would I? I could take part of my dough and really trick out some business that I could sink my teeth into, like a bakery, a book store, a swanky bistro, a theater, my own museum or even a monthly literary publication! I could produce films, beauty pageants or music talent. I could fire Donald! I could have my own hotel/motel/bed and breakfast chain. A drive-in theater. Or not.
I could use my money to do good in the world, sobering thought that. Think of all the underprivileged, disenfranchised, down trodden and disadvantaged peoples, families and cultures that could use my resources for schools, hospitals or roads. It brings a tear to my eye to think that even in this great country of ours children go to bed hungry while we send eighty-seven billion dollars to help rebuild a country that we were instrumental in destroying, but that’s another story.
I think maybe that I could head up a gigantic law firm, prosecute bad guys, track down deadbeats, deal out justice. Suppose some guy has been mistreating his family, his wife and kids, late on child support? Supposing I just send somebody out to just kick his ass and some sense into his head? Suppose I take somebody that abuses animals, stages dogfights, cockfights, buggy driving? Suppose I send them over to Palestine and the only job that they can get is to be an ambulance driver? Hmmm?
Then again, I could just retire; buy some small South American country and set myself up as King, Emperor, and Protector. I could abolish despair, injustice and neglect. It’s not rocket surgery, you know. Lift them up by their bootstraps, train them all to be hairdressers or phone sanitizers. Maybe receptionists or dental hygienists. The possibilities are endless.
But that’s not what I wanted to talk about and in thinking about it, it’s worth doing my next column about (and just in time too). Are you sure that you are qualified to vote in the presidential election? Think about it. You’re either too young, too old or too dumb to be taking part in the making of a decision that’s going to affect my life for the next four years. I’m going to talk in length about it next month, just under the wire before election. Even though only about half of the adults that are qualified to vote do, I don’t want some uninformed, ABB or ‘with us or for terrorism’ schmuck taking me where no man has gone before. We’re in bad enough shape as it is.
That is unless I win the lottery before then. Have I told you my theory of rewarding my friends and punishing my enemies? Want to be my friend?
More Essence in New Orleans
Po boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Blame My Mama
Or
The Essence Primer
Welcome to Essence! Boy, do we have a time in for you, and yes, you may make it back to wherever you come from in one piece. I hope so.
Some have been here before. Many have not. This column is to try to school you on the ways of the Big Easy and how to avoid growth experiences that you may wish to postpone, possibly for some future incarnation.
Fact one: everyone in New Orleans is running a hustle of one kind or another, it’s how we make a living. You see, out of town visitors are basically our only source of income. From experience I can swear that our folks will accept your last nickel whether you are willing to part with it or not. Don’t feel special, we do the same to each other and we smart locals have perfected the art of simultaneously holding on to our wallets, watching our backs and not believing everything we’re told by strangers. But, being the homicide capitol of the country indicates to me that not all of us are quick studies.
I’m told that it is refreshing to find such a major city steeped in black culture and as you see us going about our daily business you may want to consider that with our quaint third world attitude, a certain plantation mentality can sometimes be seen slipping through the façade. But face it, you probably can’t offer better where you come from, hey? But, we are special; we rock twenty four seven, you can drink in public, gamble your hard earned away and go to church, oftentimes on the same street. They say that shame and pride are two sides of the same coin; you’ll be hard pressed to find that coin in any of our pockets.
Oh, there are optimists here…somewhere, and if you see trash on the street, people spitting, car music blaring and the occasional sound of gunfire or sirens; please be assured that we don’t like it any more than you do, but we weren’t taught any better manners. Blame it on the lead-based paint.
You may think that we can’t find correct fitting trousers for our young men. Not true. Wearing pants six sizes too large, holding them up by the crotch and walking as if you have diaper rash is a ‘style’. Why? Got me! There is an elected official that has proposed a law against it and we don’t know which is the more ridiculous.
As far as national averages are concerned we rank just above an andouille sausage in intelligence here; although, I would not live anywhere else even if you could find me a job. And yes, unemployment is an issue here, so we’re building more hotels and expanding the convention center to put more unskilled locals to work, of which there are more than a few.
Speaking of personal safety, take a lesson from the natives: don’t wear beads, walk on unlit streets, get drunk in pubic or consider that friendly stranger your new best friend. Don’t take money out in an uncontrolled environment; I keep different denominations of bills in different pockets to be ready for different purchasing situations: I don’t pull out a wad of twenties for a cup of coffee or a pack of smokes. ‘Nuf said.
Drinking alcohol here is expected, encouraged and invited at every turn you take and with that comes an element of our population ready to take full advantage of your lack of experience and vulnerability. And I know that it would be really cool to follow your new friend up the street for ‘a little something extra’… don’t. I’ve found more than a few discarded wallets on the street on Sunday morning, not surprisingly with out of town driver’s licenses and no money.
Speaking of driving, you may also may want to know that this city makes an awful lot of money on parking tickets and the towing of illegally parked vehicles. Read posted signs and under no circumstances park within twenty feet from any street corner. Period.
Also, on our streets you’ll see and smell urine, blood, vomit, syringes, condoms and glass from car break-ins; it’s something us residents have gotten used to, would like to change and don’t often boast about. When you have tourism, poverty and ignorance in the same mix, it’s bound to happen. Consider us a dysfunctional Disneyworld.
You really have the opportunity of having a wonderfully great time here, there’s music everywhere, gaiety and laughter; just don’t get stupid on us; you can get yourself hurt and somebody can land in jail.
Now here’s my disclaimer. I write this column monthly and I am fortunate to have editors that allow me to air my views about this city and related subjects. More than once I have pissed someone off and I’ll apologize in advance if this be the case with you. Once again I hope that the powers that be will read me and ask me for suggestions, so far as I know they haven’t and I’ve given up expecting them to. I love this city, but as I tell people, living here is like taking a warm bubble bath with a martini and a snake.
Everyone that I know or have talked to can relate an experience with someone unlawfully or inconsiderately interfering with their peacefully inclined lifestyle. It’s a fact of life here. For a glowing example I suggest that while you’re here, pick up our daily newspaper and read the Metro section. You will see our daily reports of crime and in the obituaries see another one of our citizens felled by violence. Multiply that by three hundred sixty five and you have the Big Easy quality of life.
So go and enjoy the Essence Festival. Attend a motivational seminar, it’s the only time of year that we have them on that scale. Then go home where often as not you may not have to lock your house, your car, your bike or your heart. Just for God’s sake be careful out there.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Blame My Mama
Or
The Essence Primer
Welcome to Essence! Boy, do we have a time in for you, and yes, you may make it back to wherever you come from in one piece. I hope so.
Some have been here before. Many have not. This column is to try to school you on the ways of the Big Easy and how to avoid growth experiences that you may wish to postpone, possibly for some future incarnation.
Fact one: everyone in New Orleans is running a hustle of one kind or another, it’s how we make a living. You see, out of town visitors are basically our only source of income. From experience I can swear that our folks will accept your last nickel whether you are willing to part with it or not. Don’t feel special, we do the same to each other and we smart locals have perfected the art of simultaneously holding on to our wallets, watching our backs and not believing everything we’re told by strangers. But, being the homicide capitol of the country indicates to me that not all of us are quick studies.
I’m told that it is refreshing to find such a major city steeped in black culture and as you see us going about our daily business you may want to consider that with our quaint third world attitude, a certain plantation mentality can sometimes be seen slipping through the façade. But face it, you probably can’t offer better where you come from, hey? But, we are special; we rock twenty four seven, you can drink in public, gamble your hard earned away and go to church, oftentimes on the same street. They say that shame and pride are two sides of the same coin; you’ll be hard pressed to find that coin in any of our pockets.
Oh, there are optimists here…somewhere, and if you see trash on the street, people spitting, car music blaring and the occasional sound of gunfire or sirens; please be assured that we don’t like it any more than you do, but we weren’t taught any better manners. Blame it on the lead-based paint.
You may think that we can’t find correct fitting trousers for our young men. Not true. Wearing pants six sizes too large, holding them up by the crotch and walking as if you have diaper rash is a ‘style’. Why? Got me! There is an elected official that has proposed a law against it and we don’t know which is the more ridiculous.
As far as national averages are concerned we rank just above an andouille sausage in intelligence here; although, I would not live anywhere else even if you could find me a job. And yes, unemployment is an issue here, so we’re building more hotels and expanding the convention center to put more unskilled locals to work, of which there are more than a few.
Speaking of personal safety, take a lesson from the natives: don’t wear beads, walk on unlit streets, get drunk in pubic or consider that friendly stranger your new best friend. Don’t take money out in an uncontrolled environment; I keep different denominations of bills in different pockets to be ready for different purchasing situations: I don’t pull out a wad of twenties for a cup of coffee or a pack of smokes. ‘Nuf said.
Drinking alcohol here is expected, encouraged and invited at every turn you take and with that comes an element of our population ready to take full advantage of your lack of experience and vulnerability. And I know that it would be really cool to follow your new friend up the street for ‘a little something extra’… don’t. I’ve found more than a few discarded wallets on the street on Sunday morning, not surprisingly with out of town driver’s licenses and no money.
Speaking of driving, you may also may want to know that this city makes an awful lot of money on parking tickets and the towing of illegally parked vehicles. Read posted signs and under no circumstances park within twenty feet from any street corner. Period.
Also, on our streets you’ll see and smell urine, blood, vomit, syringes, condoms and glass from car break-ins; it’s something us residents have gotten used to, would like to change and don’t often boast about. When you have tourism, poverty and ignorance in the same mix, it’s bound to happen. Consider us a dysfunctional Disneyworld.
You really have the opportunity of having a wonderfully great time here, there’s music everywhere, gaiety and laughter; just don’t get stupid on us; you can get yourself hurt and somebody can land in jail.
Now here’s my disclaimer. I write this column monthly and I am fortunate to have editors that allow me to air my views about this city and related subjects. More than once I have pissed someone off and I’ll apologize in advance if this be the case with you. Once again I hope that the powers that be will read me and ask me for suggestions, so far as I know they haven’t and I’ve given up expecting them to. I love this city, but as I tell people, living here is like taking a warm bubble bath with a martini and a snake.
Everyone that I know or have talked to can relate an experience with someone unlawfully or inconsiderately interfering with their peacefully inclined lifestyle. It’s a fact of life here. For a glowing example I suggest that while you’re here, pick up our daily newspaper and read the Metro section. You will see our daily reports of crime and in the obituaries see another one of our citizens felled by violence. Multiply that by three hundred sixty five and you have the Big Easy quality of life.
So go and enjoy the Essence Festival. Attend a motivational seminar, it’s the only time of year that we have them on that scale. Then go home where often as not you may not have to lock your house, your car, your bike or your heart. Just for God’s sake be careful out there.
Waitering in New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Turpentine and Dandelion Wine
I had another restaurant dream last night, I usually get one when pulling double shifts or training new recruits, which I did last week. For those out there that have never had a waiter’s job, it goes like this: it’s a super un-naturally busy restaurant night, the place is packed, the kitchen is three miles away, your station is full and everybody wants something. You’re racing full tilt to get things done and nothing is what it should be, food is coming out wrong, customers are asking for strange things, have strange questions and identical faces. You can’t tell where you are except that you’re balls to the wall busy and running your ass off and nothing is getting done.
It’s really loud, by the time you make the distance to the kitchen, other waiters are rushing everywhere, you’ve forgotten what you came for and the cooks are screaming in a language unintelligible to you.
I imagine if someone was to look at me in the midst of this nightmare, I would appear like my dog Ginger does when she has her dreams: whimpering and jerking like she’s hooked up to an electrode. Perhaps dogs are reincarnated waiters. Things that make you go hmmmm.
I did not waken refreshed. Pensive and not refreshed. I went on a wonder and this I wondered:
What is this thing about waiter’s nametags or introductions? The “Hello, my name is Jeremy and I’ll be your waiter tonight” type of action. Personally, I go with the guy who doesn’t want to know a waiter’s name unless the waiter is going out with his daughter and maybe not even then. Specifically, I don’t go out to eat to make friends; that’s what I go to bars for. I go out to eat to be with good company, have someone cook me something yummy to eat and then have somebody else do the dishes. That’s what I’m in a restaurant to do, and unless the waiter (male or female) treats me like either one of us has the intelligence of a box of rocks, that’s what I’m here to tip well for. Customers should be like me.
Let’s start with this, what’s with these parties of eight, ten or more that think they can get a table with no reservation on a busy night and who are the boneheads that move heaven and earth, and the chair that my date has her purse on, to seat them? Those people are gonna get loud, they’re gonna throw the kitchen out of synch, with my food, and, they’ll never get the good service smaller parties do. AND, a word to parents; your two, four, six, eight, ten or twelve-year-old does NOT want to come fine dining on a Saturday night. They want to go to Burger King, Don’t get me started on split checks, cell phones or hot tea.
How about those people that drink bottled water? Don’t they know that every food they eat and every cocktail they drink is made with our local sludge? I want to say: “would you like local water, bottled water or a margarita? because you’re gonna pay as much for foreign water, with or without carbonation, as for some first rate tequila: get a clue .
And while we’re at it, what is it with the lemon with water? to me, it’s like kissing your sister, and what waiter has not spied a customer slipping some Sweet and Lo into it (or into their pocket, I might add).
Allergies? I don’t understand them. I once avoided going out with a stunning woman after she volunteered the fact that she was allergic to garlic! What kind of future could you have with someone like that? Diets? Listen, if you want to lose weight, eat less and exercise or be comfortable with who you are. Period. Especially when you go out to eat: Going out is either a sensual experience or a forage, and hopefully you know the difference. In either case, and above all, you should know why you’re there. Attention shoppers: it’s only dinner! Rule number one: the Chef knows what they’re doing. Chef know that smoked pork chops go with greens and mashed potatoes, and that Adkins was a culinary misanthropic sexually repressed pervert and the Pastry Chef considers Sugar Busters an abomination to nature. Deal with it, like I said: it’s only dinner!
You’ll be hard pressed to find a waiter that will sing the praises of most of their client’s cognizant reality concepts in and of real time. Mostly, it’s like they’ve been dropped from outer space into an eating establishment with no clue as to how they got there. Example: “Hello, (with a flourish of napkin) welcome to Chez Nez, I’m your waiter Anthony and I’ll be serving you tonight (and kissing your ass for money); can I get you a wine list or a cocktail before dinner?” Blank stare. You’re who? I’m what? We’re what? And do I want a huh? How do I work this?… You get this very very very often.
I’m of the school of “I don’t care who you are, I’m here with someone and I want strong drink right now!”
And here’s the big one: tipping. They (whoever they are) should pass out this information at our borders: waiters are paid less than half our minimum living wage by owners who insinuate that gratuities will make up for that inequity and are taxed by a government on that assumption. Simply put, I, as a server, depend on you, as a customer, to supplement my meager wage with money based on my knowledge and expertise of service. Tips (To Insure Promptness) is how I make my living. It’s a sick concept; but, it’s in place and a reality to me and the people that I am financially responsible to. To stay afloat, unless I’m a complete bonehead, you need to consider, as a client, that my service is worth a reasonable compensation, at least fifteen to twenty percent above your tab. That’s the reality of it. If you think that this is easy you’re welcome to try it. Me? I’m gonna go soak my feet and wonder why, if that overweight turkey with the cigar minded me looking down his trophy wife’s cleavage, he didn’t think to dress her better.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Turpentine and Dandelion Wine
I had another restaurant dream last night, I usually get one when pulling double shifts or training new recruits, which I did last week. For those out there that have never had a waiter’s job, it goes like this: it’s a super un-naturally busy restaurant night, the place is packed, the kitchen is three miles away, your station is full and everybody wants something. You’re racing full tilt to get things done and nothing is what it should be, food is coming out wrong, customers are asking for strange things, have strange questions and identical faces. You can’t tell where you are except that you’re balls to the wall busy and running your ass off and nothing is getting done.
It’s really loud, by the time you make the distance to the kitchen, other waiters are rushing everywhere, you’ve forgotten what you came for and the cooks are screaming in a language unintelligible to you.
I imagine if someone was to look at me in the midst of this nightmare, I would appear like my dog Ginger does when she has her dreams: whimpering and jerking like she’s hooked up to an electrode. Perhaps dogs are reincarnated waiters. Things that make you go hmmmm.
I did not waken refreshed. Pensive and not refreshed. I went on a wonder and this I wondered:
What is this thing about waiter’s nametags or introductions? The “Hello, my name is Jeremy and I’ll be your waiter tonight” type of action. Personally, I go with the guy who doesn’t want to know a waiter’s name unless the waiter is going out with his daughter and maybe not even then. Specifically, I don’t go out to eat to make friends; that’s what I go to bars for. I go out to eat to be with good company, have someone cook me something yummy to eat and then have somebody else do the dishes. That’s what I’m in a restaurant to do, and unless the waiter (male or female) treats me like either one of us has the intelligence of a box of rocks, that’s what I’m here to tip well for. Customers should be like me.
Let’s start with this, what’s with these parties of eight, ten or more that think they can get a table with no reservation on a busy night and who are the boneheads that move heaven and earth, and the chair that my date has her purse on, to seat them? Those people are gonna get loud, they’re gonna throw the kitchen out of synch, with my food, and, they’ll never get the good service smaller parties do. AND, a word to parents; your two, four, six, eight, ten or twelve-year-old does NOT want to come fine dining on a Saturday night. They want to go to Burger King, Don’t get me started on split checks, cell phones or hot tea.
How about those people that drink bottled water? Don’t they know that every food they eat and every cocktail they drink is made with our local sludge? I want to say: “would you like local water, bottled water or a margarita? because you’re gonna pay as much for foreign water, with or without carbonation, as for some first rate tequila: get a clue .
And while we’re at it, what is it with the lemon with water? to me, it’s like kissing your sister, and what waiter has not spied a customer slipping some Sweet and Lo into it (or into their pocket, I might add).
Allergies? I don’t understand them. I once avoided going out with a stunning woman after she volunteered the fact that she was allergic to garlic! What kind of future could you have with someone like that? Diets? Listen, if you want to lose weight, eat less and exercise or be comfortable with who you are. Period. Especially when you go out to eat: Going out is either a sensual experience or a forage, and hopefully you know the difference. In either case, and above all, you should know why you’re there. Attention shoppers: it’s only dinner! Rule number one: the Chef knows what they’re doing. Chef know that smoked pork chops go with greens and mashed potatoes, and that Adkins was a culinary misanthropic sexually repressed pervert and the Pastry Chef considers Sugar Busters an abomination to nature. Deal with it, like I said: it’s only dinner!
You’ll be hard pressed to find a waiter that will sing the praises of most of their client’s cognizant reality concepts in and of real time. Mostly, it’s like they’ve been dropped from outer space into an eating establishment with no clue as to how they got there. Example: “Hello, (with a flourish of napkin) welcome to Chez Nez, I’m your waiter Anthony and I’ll be serving you tonight (and kissing your ass for money); can I get you a wine list or a cocktail before dinner?” Blank stare. You’re who? I’m what? We’re what? And do I want a huh? How do I work this?… You get this very very very often.
I’m of the school of “I don’t care who you are, I’m here with someone and I want strong drink right now!”
And here’s the big one: tipping. They (whoever they are) should pass out this information at our borders: waiters are paid less than half our minimum living wage by owners who insinuate that gratuities will make up for that inequity and are taxed by a government on that assumption. Simply put, I, as a server, depend on you, as a customer, to supplement my meager wage with money based on my knowledge and expertise of service. Tips (To Insure Promptness) is how I make my living. It’s a sick concept; but, it’s in place and a reality to me and the people that I am financially responsible to. To stay afloat, unless I’m a complete bonehead, you need to consider, as a client, that my service is worth a reasonable compensation, at least fifteen to twenty percent above your tab. That’s the reality of it. If you think that this is easy you’re welcome to try it. Me? I’m gonna go soak my feet and wonder why, if that overweight turkey with the cigar minded me looking down his trophy wife’s cleavage, he didn’t think to dress her better.
Love in the French Quarter
Po-boy Views
By Phil LaMancusa
It’s Valentine’s Day
Or
God Help Me, I’m in Love Again
*********************
Well, I was gonna do the story about how our dear friend Marrinette completely wore out her welcome in Saquine, Texas (where she had gone for the funeral) by running over (and killing) her dead brother’s deaf dog (from the dog’s point of view). But, no…
Then I thought about doing a piece on where to find the best gumbo in the French Quarter. Maybe next month.
Or, what about the time, while out walking, I saw my life flash in front of my face in the form of a blonde, on a bicycle, headed in the opposite direction and hopefully into my past? Alas and alack it’s just not to be. Why? Because it’s February; you know… February, Valentine’s Day…..Love and stuff. And so, I am compelled by greater forces than I care to admit to, to compose a Po-boy view of love; you know, that four letter word that we feel as adrenaline when we’re young and nausea as we get older.
Don’t get me wrong; I believe that true love can be found, and God knows, I’ve found it hundreds of times; and forgive me if I sound jaded; but, I haven’t found any future in it?
Yes Lord, it’s the ‘Love makes the world go ‘round’, ‘Love is a many splendid thing’, ‘Love is like an itching in my heart’ and ‘Who wrote the book of love?’ (and where can I get a copy?) time of the year.
Well, it’s happened to me again; and I don’t know whether to sing show tunes or to run screaming.
The last woman to run through my emotional house was carrying scissors and left me with a bad liver and a broken heart (it’s my pate and I’ll cry if I want to), but that’s another story; suffice to say (as Tom Waits said) “I lost my equilibrium, my car keys and my pride”.
That said, and just in time for the big V.D. (Valentines Day), I’m going to dispense some wisdom, wit and a sick mind’s road map on how to tell when love is coming, going or just passing through.
First the words of wisdom: To the men: if you think that you will ever learn any more about women than the fact that they use more toilet paper than you do; forget it (!) you won’t.
To the women: if you think that (a) ‘still water runs deep’, (b) he’s smarter than he looks, or (3) he can guess what you’re thinking: it just ain’t so, and will never be. Likewise, if you think that you can change his unenlightened attitude toward everything that you hold dear: get real, girl; it won’t happen in a lifetime of toilet paper.
Now for the bad news.
How To Tell When Love Is Beginning
The phases of ‘Love Beginning’ are when: you are least expecting it, aren’t looking for it, could care less about it, and possibly would prefer to avoid it. Usually it’s when you happen to glance up and think to yourself “I wonder if fries come with that shake?” Then comes the eye contact, the mutual smiles and hidden dialog in your first bits of conversation. I.e. (a)“What do you think about sex, drugs and Rock and Roll? (b) Had your blood tested lately? (c) Is that a gun in your pocket? Or (4) Do fries come with that shake? These and other subtle bits of repartee usually get answers like (a) Beat it, loser! (b) I think I hear my Mother calling me. (3) I’m sorry, you obviously have mistaken me for a complete imbecile; now go away. (d) What part of NO don’t you understand? Or (e) Let’s keep this pleasant and I’ll be real if you will.
With any luck at all it will be the last one and you start to ‘accidentally’ run into each other, which leads you to have a date or a few, then you find that you actually like each other (although you fail to understand why), share a drink, a laugh, a song, and then a kiss (another four letter word). Now you’re getting in to deep water and you recall that the last time you saw a light at the end of the Tunnel Of Love it was on the front of an oncoming train that became known as The Heartbreak Express. So you bolt.
But you come back; why? Duh! You’ve been bitten by the Love Bug! It’s like an itching in your heart. It’s about Love and Happiness, and all of that R&B stuff. How do you know?
How To Tell When Love Is Moving In
Well, now that you’ve chewed on each others faces, maybe even shaken a few covers together; you’ve discovered that you have more in common than you thought. You call each other for no apparent reason, adopt each other’s friends, like each others cats/dogs/small farm animals, have a favorite eating place, steal kisses even though they’re freely given, and started holding hands in public. You’ve considered using the ‘L’ word. So, naturally you have a meltdown. You get the ‘Lover’s Bends’.
It’s kind of a cross between The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul and a Tractor Beam from the Starship Enterprise; those of us who have “been there-done that” know immediately what I mean. The rest of you just haven’t thought about it that way or are in for one friggin’ growth experience. To make a long story short, you’re reeling in your heart on the chance that it won’t get it’s ass kicked and your heart, quite naturally, is resisting because, eight to five, it will.
The conversations that you have with yourself, your friends, your analyst/bartender, panhandlers go like: “I can do this….I don’t want to do this…I’m no good at this…I’ve done this..can I do this(?)…what will/do you/I/they think of me doing this? And finally: ‘to hell with every body, I’m gonna do this! (should I be doing this?)
Chances are you survive the emotional mugging. You take the plunge. It’s forever after again; the whole enchilada, the brass ring….Ready, set, go! SH_T!
You write notes, you send flowers, you pick out towels. You tell your family, your previous lovers (the ones who are talking to you again), the people at work. In short, you cut off all your exits. It’s barefoot in the park time. Right?
Wrong. Do the words “I need more space” sound familiar?
By Phil LaMancusa
It’s Valentine’s Day
Or
God Help Me, I’m in Love Again
*********************
Well, I was gonna do the story about how our dear friend Marrinette completely wore out her welcome in Saquine, Texas (where she had gone for the funeral) by running over (and killing) her dead brother’s deaf dog (from the dog’s point of view). But, no…
Then I thought about doing a piece on where to find the best gumbo in the French Quarter. Maybe next month.
Or, what about the time, while out walking, I saw my life flash in front of my face in the form of a blonde, on a bicycle, headed in the opposite direction and hopefully into my past? Alas and alack it’s just not to be. Why? Because it’s February; you know… February, Valentine’s Day…..Love and stuff. And so, I am compelled by greater forces than I care to admit to, to compose a Po-boy view of love; you know, that four letter word that we feel as adrenaline when we’re young and nausea as we get older.
Don’t get me wrong; I believe that true love can be found, and God knows, I’ve found it hundreds of times; and forgive me if I sound jaded; but, I haven’t found any future in it?
Yes Lord, it’s the ‘Love makes the world go ‘round’, ‘Love is a many splendid thing’, ‘Love is like an itching in my heart’ and ‘Who wrote the book of love?’ (and where can I get a copy?) time of the year.
Well, it’s happened to me again; and I don’t know whether to sing show tunes or to run screaming.
The last woman to run through my emotional house was carrying scissors and left me with a bad liver and a broken heart (it’s my pate and I’ll cry if I want to), but that’s another story; suffice to say (as Tom Waits said) “I lost my equilibrium, my car keys and my pride”.
That said, and just in time for the big V.D. (Valentines Day), I’m going to dispense some wisdom, wit and a sick mind’s road map on how to tell when love is coming, going or just passing through.
First the words of wisdom: To the men: if you think that you will ever learn any more about women than the fact that they use more toilet paper than you do; forget it (!) you won’t.
To the women: if you think that (a) ‘still water runs deep’, (b) he’s smarter than he looks, or (3) he can guess what you’re thinking: it just ain’t so, and will never be. Likewise, if you think that you can change his unenlightened attitude toward everything that you hold dear: get real, girl; it won’t happen in a lifetime of toilet paper.
Now for the bad news.
How To Tell When Love Is Beginning
The phases of ‘Love Beginning’ are when: you are least expecting it, aren’t looking for it, could care less about it, and possibly would prefer to avoid it. Usually it’s when you happen to glance up and think to yourself “I wonder if fries come with that shake?” Then comes the eye contact, the mutual smiles and hidden dialog in your first bits of conversation. I.e. (a)“What do you think about sex, drugs and Rock and Roll? (b) Had your blood tested lately? (c) Is that a gun in your pocket? Or (4) Do fries come with that shake? These and other subtle bits of repartee usually get answers like (a) Beat it, loser! (b) I think I hear my Mother calling me. (3) I’m sorry, you obviously have mistaken me for a complete imbecile; now go away. (d) What part of NO don’t you understand? Or (e) Let’s keep this pleasant and I’ll be real if you will.
With any luck at all it will be the last one and you start to ‘accidentally’ run into each other, which leads you to have a date or a few, then you find that you actually like each other (although you fail to understand why), share a drink, a laugh, a song, and then a kiss (another four letter word). Now you’re getting in to deep water and you recall that the last time you saw a light at the end of the Tunnel Of Love it was on the front of an oncoming train that became known as The Heartbreak Express. So you bolt.
But you come back; why? Duh! You’ve been bitten by the Love Bug! It’s like an itching in your heart. It’s about Love and Happiness, and all of that R&B stuff. How do you know?
How To Tell When Love Is Moving In
Well, now that you’ve chewed on each others faces, maybe even shaken a few covers together; you’ve discovered that you have more in common than you thought. You call each other for no apparent reason, adopt each other’s friends, like each others cats/dogs/small farm animals, have a favorite eating place, steal kisses even though they’re freely given, and started holding hands in public. You’ve considered using the ‘L’ word. So, naturally you have a meltdown. You get the ‘Lover’s Bends’.
It’s kind of a cross between The Long Dark Teatime Of The Soul and a Tractor Beam from the Starship Enterprise; those of us who have “been there-done that” know immediately what I mean. The rest of you just haven’t thought about it that way or are in for one friggin’ growth experience. To make a long story short, you’re reeling in your heart on the chance that it won’t get it’s ass kicked and your heart, quite naturally, is resisting because, eight to five, it will.
The conversations that you have with yourself, your friends, your analyst/bartender, panhandlers go like: “I can do this….I don’t want to do this…I’m no good at this…I’ve done this..can I do this(?)…what will/do you/I/they think of me doing this? And finally: ‘to hell with every body, I’m gonna do this! (should I be doing this?)
Chances are you survive the emotional mugging. You take the plunge. It’s forever after again; the whole enchilada, the brass ring….Ready, set, go! SH_T!
You write notes, you send flowers, you pick out towels. You tell your family, your previous lovers (the ones who are talking to you again), the people at work. In short, you cut off all your exits. It’s barefoot in the park time. Right?
Wrong. Do the words “I need more space” sound familiar?
Southern Comfort in New Orleans
Po-boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Supercalafragalisticexpealadocious
Or
Lip Service in Our Time
The other night, The Weezel and I were snug as bugs between the cool sheets, half-dozing and idly chitting about the merits of sending Aunt Ethel flowers on the event of her one hundred and Third birthday. Weezel said that it might be a waste of money because of Ethel’s poor eyesight. We chatted about definitions of the words pragmatic, thrifty and cheap. I was just dozing off thinking that if Ethel had had her corneas rebuilt instead of that ‘female’ surgery last year…when I heard; “it’s not as if we didn’t have plenty when we was growin’ up; Cousin Bubba had a nursery and…”
“What?’
“Yeah we had plenty of flow…”
“No, not that: You actually have a cousin named Bubba?”
“Well yes, but he doesn’t like to be called that any more, fact is; I don’t even know how he even got that name, his name’s Andrew”.
I started to drift off again thinking about the nicknames around me in my youth and otherwise. I unearthed enough theory to write a thesis and it’s kept me up nights.
Nom de nique is from the Greek nicken, to nod or wink, and its present form is from the Old English: neke-name for eke-name. I believe it to be the bastard child of slang.
Slang is all around us and we hear and witness it every day in every culture; of course most of us wouldn’t recognize slang in many foreign languages, (I’m not gonna go there) but I’m sure it’s there. Slang is a shortcut through language. Who of us upon hearing thoughts like: ‘Drove it like he stole it’, ‘Hotter than a snake’s ass in a wagon rut’, ‘Dumber than a box of rocks’, or ‘Pretty as a speckled pup on a red rug’ does not immediately pass go and collect two hundred dollars worth of visual? How about “All that meat and no potatoes?” “Think I can get fries with that shake?”
Indigenous Americans had slang and used it to name every thing around them, like Winnamucca, Minnesota, and ‘Tall Brave Who Eat Mushroom And Talk To Tree’. C’mon, where do you think Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse got their names? Fortune cookies?
Anyway, back to nicknames. In my definition nicknames are not forms of shortened names, such as Lori for Delores, Shelly for Michelle, Jim or Jimmy for James, or Stu for Stupid (add a descriptor word to them, like Jimmy Valentine, Flatfoot Jim, or Stupid Jerk-off and you’ve got something else going). I knew an Irish kid named Whitey; a Cuban named Blackey and a few Reds in my time. These are nicknames derived from physical attributes i.e. Lefty, PeeWee, Slow Eyed or Knobby. Again: Slim, Stubby, Twitch, Shorty, Gimp, and Thunder Thighs; these are all names that I can see and understand. My sister Alberta has always been called Bonnie, my sister Mary Joanne, Mickey, and kid sister Panagiota, Penny. Go figure.
I’ve seen nicknames in the media and music all my life: Scarface, Skinny Minnie, Flatfoot Floozy, Short Fat Fannie, Baby Face, Long Tall Sally, OO Poo Pa Do, and if you add descriptors you have Little Stevie Wonder, Dolly Parton, Blind Lemon Johnson, Pretty Boy Floyd and Willie the dog faced boy.
There are also nicknames for temperaments: Shifty, Easy, Mellow, Hot, Feisty, Cuddly, Smooth and Asshole. And there are blanket nicknames that we give the world around us: Juicy, Betty, Case, Sweetie, Darlin’, Dude, Badass, Sly Fox, Bones, Elvis, Sugar Foot, Face, various canine terms and sometimes just plain ‘Sup baaaaby?’. There are also private nicknames that we use with loved ones like Sweet Cheeks, Sweet Darlin’, Sugar Tits and Honey Dripper.
There’s name names and there’s name games. Name games are like Sioux City Sue, Jake the Snake, Loose Lucy, Motorcycle Michael, Slammin’ Sammy Snead, Louie the Lump, Machine Gun Kelly, Billy the Kid, Easy Eddie, Broadway Phil, Sugar Ray, Dizzy, Duke and a boy named Sue.
Name names are when a person’s name is almost interchangeable with their nickname. The King, The Killer, The Songstress, The Iceman, The Chairman of the Board, the Godfather and the Queen of Soul. At work we have code names for management: The Preacher, Your Uncle, The Bulldog and Sparky (with all due respect) as well as for working areas: The Farm, Deuce Alley, The Gris Gris Room. I work with three Jennifers and names like Jen or Jenny are passe, instead they’re known as Jennifer/their last name or just ‘hot lips’.
Notice that very few if any movie stars use nicknames. They do use shortened names like Tom, Brad, Mel, Ben, Andy, Joe, Johnny but I think that’s to instill our confidence in them as people and mostly an affectation of male actors.
Also it almost seems obligatory to give a nickname in our TP obituary column (look for yourself, I ain’t getting sued).
We give names to our pets, for in essence, we can’t really know what their real names are; except, all dogs will go by the name of ‘Rover’, male cats can always be called ‘Tom’ and females will always answer to ‘Minnou’. ‘Old Nick was a term reserved for mules and who knows where they get the names for racehorses.
Point being, the Oxford English Dictionary took over seventy years to complete. It defines over a half a million words, and it is a work that can never be completed as long as any person speaking this language holds breath in their body. It was put together largely by the efforts of a professor and a convicted madman/murderer from the confines of an asylum. As long as you can take or make a word to describe your reality our definition of our language continues its evolution. Listen, learn. Your ‘Round’: that’s someone that lives near you. ‘Bounce’: getting out fast. ‘Betty’: a desirable good looking woman. ‘Cool’: a word with an attitude connotation, you either have it or you don’t; something that you cannot learn.
Here I am, drifting off to sleep, when the Weezel’s voice breaks through my reverie miasma. “Don’t you want to know what Bubba’s Daddy’s name was?
“Snurphhhh?
“Sump”. She says, “That’s short for Sumpter…… G’night Polecat.” And Goodnight to us all.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Supercalafragalisticexpealadocious
Or
Lip Service in Our Time
The other night, The Weezel and I were snug as bugs between the cool sheets, half-dozing and idly chitting about the merits of sending Aunt Ethel flowers on the event of her one hundred and Third birthday. Weezel said that it might be a waste of money because of Ethel’s poor eyesight. We chatted about definitions of the words pragmatic, thrifty and cheap. I was just dozing off thinking that if Ethel had had her corneas rebuilt instead of that ‘female’ surgery last year…when I heard; “it’s not as if we didn’t have plenty when we was growin’ up; Cousin Bubba had a nursery and…”
“What?’
“Yeah we had plenty of flow…”
“No, not that: You actually have a cousin named Bubba?”
“Well yes, but he doesn’t like to be called that any more, fact is; I don’t even know how he even got that name, his name’s Andrew”.
I started to drift off again thinking about the nicknames around me in my youth and otherwise. I unearthed enough theory to write a thesis and it’s kept me up nights.
Nom de nique is from the Greek nicken, to nod or wink, and its present form is from the Old English: neke-name for eke-name. I believe it to be the bastard child of slang.
Slang is all around us and we hear and witness it every day in every culture; of course most of us wouldn’t recognize slang in many foreign languages, (I’m not gonna go there) but I’m sure it’s there. Slang is a shortcut through language. Who of us upon hearing thoughts like: ‘Drove it like he stole it’, ‘Hotter than a snake’s ass in a wagon rut’, ‘Dumber than a box of rocks’, or ‘Pretty as a speckled pup on a red rug’ does not immediately pass go and collect two hundred dollars worth of visual? How about “All that meat and no potatoes?” “Think I can get fries with that shake?”
Indigenous Americans had slang and used it to name every thing around them, like Winnamucca, Minnesota, and ‘Tall Brave Who Eat Mushroom And Talk To Tree’. C’mon, where do you think Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse got their names? Fortune cookies?
Anyway, back to nicknames. In my definition nicknames are not forms of shortened names, such as Lori for Delores, Shelly for Michelle, Jim or Jimmy for James, or Stu for Stupid (add a descriptor word to them, like Jimmy Valentine, Flatfoot Jim, or Stupid Jerk-off and you’ve got something else going). I knew an Irish kid named Whitey; a Cuban named Blackey and a few Reds in my time. These are nicknames derived from physical attributes i.e. Lefty, PeeWee, Slow Eyed or Knobby. Again: Slim, Stubby, Twitch, Shorty, Gimp, and Thunder Thighs; these are all names that I can see and understand. My sister Alberta has always been called Bonnie, my sister Mary Joanne, Mickey, and kid sister Panagiota, Penny. Go figure.
I’ve seen nicknames in the media and music all my life: Scarface, Skinny Minnie, Flatfoot Floozy, Short Fat Fannie, Baby Face, Long Tall Sally, OO Poo Pa Do, and if you add descriptors you have Little Stevie Wonder, Dolly Parton, Blind Lemon Johnson, Pretty Boy Floyd and Willie the dog faced boy.
There are also nicknames for temperaments: Shifty, Easy, Mellow, Hot, Feisty, Cuddly, Smooth and Asshole. And there are blanket nicknames that we give the world around us: Juicy, Betty, Case, Sweetie, Darlin’, Dude, Badass, Sly Fox, Bones, Elvis, Sugar Foot, Face, various canine terms and sometimes just plain ‘Sup baaaaby?’. There are also private nicknames that we use with loved ones like Sweet Cheeks, Sweet Darlin’, Sugar Tits and Honey Dripper.
There’s name names and there’s name games. Name games are like Sioux City Sue, Jake the Snake, Loose Lucy, Motorcycle Michael, Slammin’ Sammy Snead, Louie the Lump, Machine Gun Kelly, Billy the Kid, Easy Eddie, Broadway Phil, Sugar Ray, Dizzy, Duke and a boy named Sue.
Name names are when a person’s name is almost interchangeable with their nickname. The King, The Killer, The Songstress, The Iceman, The Chairman of the Board, the Godfather and the Queen of Soul. At work we have code names for management: The Preacher, Your Uncle, The Bulldog and Sparky (with all due respect) as well as for working areas: The Farm, Deuce Alley, The Gris Gris Room. I work with three Jennifers and names like Jen or Jenny are passe, instead they’re known as Jennifer/their last name or just ‘hot lips’.
Notice that very few if any movie stars use nicknames. They do use shortened names like Tom, Brad, Mel, Ben, Andy, Joe, Johnny but I think that’s to instill our confidence in them as people and mostly an affectation of male actors.
Also it almost seems obligatory to give a nickname in our TP obituary column (look for yourself, I ain’t getting sued).
We give names to our pets, for in essence, we can’t really know what their real names are; except, all dogs will go by the name of ‘Rover’, male cats can always be called ‘Tom’ and females will always answer to ‘Minnou’. ‘Old Nick was a term reserved for mules and who knows where they get the names for racehorses.
Point being, the Oxford English Dictionary took over seventy years to complete. It defines over a half a million words, and it is a work that can never be completed as long as any person speaking this language holds breath in their body. It was put together largely by the efforts of a professor and a convicted madman/murderer from the confines of an asylum. As long as you can take or make a word to describe your reality our definition of our language continues its evolution. Listen, learn. Your ‘Round’: that’s someone that lives near you. ‘Bounce’: getting out fast. ‘Betty’: a desirable good looking woman. ‘Cool’: a word with an attitude connotation, you either have it or you don’t; something that you cannot learn.
Here I am, drifting off to sleep, when the Weezel’s voice breaks through my reverie miasma. “Don’t you want to know what Bubba’s Daddy’s name was?
“Snurphhhh?
“Sump”. She says, “That’s short for Sumpter…… G’night Polecat.” And Goodnight to us all.
Reborn in New Orleans
Po Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
The Death Of Don Flagrante Delicto
In my youth I was told that I could grow up to be President and furthermore, that I could petition the Lord with prayer. Thus far, all evidence that those are true statements are to the contrary.
On a 1975 album by the Tubes, a tune called ‘What do you want from life?’ promised me that as an American citizen I was entitled to, among other things, a heated kidney shaped pool, a Gucci shoe tree, Bob Dylan’s new unlisted phone number, Rosemary’s baby, a foolproof plan, an airtight alibi and a statue of a baby’s arm holding an apple.
According to recent emails, I also deserve lower body fat, higher energy levels, wrinkle reduction, sexual potency, better memory, muscle strength and lower mortgage interest rates. Also, at my request, I can have human growth hormones, relaxers, sedatives, university degrees, viagra, lower credit interest rates, and the ability to investigate any of my friends.
Add to that, I can get Heather’s (and her pre-pubescent friends) web cam shots, the websites of young Russian and Japanese women that are just frothing at the mouth to wed me, Paris Hilton’s xxxx video (with sound), breast enhancement, a gargantuan penis and staying power; and honey, I CAN BE COMPLETE!!!
What went wrong?
Me. I must have missed something growing up. This could be equated to our politics. I know that if I lived in a Democratic society I would have leaders that would do what I tell them is best for me. And, if I happened to vote Republican, I would get leaders that I could count on to do the best for me and that no one would tell me lies. This is simply not true. For leaders and example setters, I have charlatans.
Also, I’m told, as an American, I should be able to count on the media to tell me that there are limitations specific to my economic, physical and intelligence station, and not to jerk me off. This has also not been the case in my recent memory.
Is the media Republican or Democrat? Good question. By the above criteria the media is neither. The media is a Dictator. A dictator and, in essence, a vanity manipulator.
Don’t get me wrong; I have paid my buck at the kissing booths of life:
“Hate that gray? Wash it away!”, “Lose 20 lbs. in two weeks!”, “learn the love secrets of the stars’, “A cleaner closer shave”, “Good for coughs, colds, sore holes, puts hair on anything but a cue ball!, etc. etc. etc.”
Like a lot of Americans, I play the lottery, have lost my paycheck at black jack tables, bet my life on someone to love me for the rest of my life and read books on invisibility, physical immortality, gotten drunk on the elixir of patriotism and taken the Course in Miracles. So?
So, should I not be content with the words that my parents praised my birth with? “He’s got five fingers on each hand, he’s got ten toes and, thank God, he ain’t a moron!” I should be so flattered, I should think that. I don’t
It seems to me that it’s become more important who it is that wins than what it is that’s right. I am suspicious that, as they say, ‘something is rotten in Denmark’, I smell it, I feel it, I know it. The world I live in demands that I should BE SOMEBODY, but it never tells me how to be that somebody; or whom that somebody is. I did not come with an owners manual; so, like a blind man in an unfamiliar space, I’ve been trying to feel my way through life.
I think that there are a lot of us lost Americans, the ones who didn’t become President, the ones whose prayers have not been answered, that may wonder these same things.
It’s as elusive as a fire fly, but as pervasive as planters warts. The rich get richer, the poor have children, the criminals take what they want, the mighty are felled to rise again and the downtrodden are snatched from the brink once again to be given one final flogging. Is this goodness being rewarded? Does God move in mysterious ways? Give me a break!
By all the evidence collected thus far, it’s not a reach to say that: some people get more than their fair share; not because they deserve it, but, by the fact that they’re willing to stick it to some smaller guy, the average Joe. Period. And there are more of us smaller guys than there are them, so go figure. Greed talks and the rest of us walks.
This is not a rant or a rave, but more of ‘I’m weary of folks telling us how fortunate we are instead of letting us in on the screwing that we’re taking. Dry, hard and up against a tree.
And I know that I should be grateful, yes downright grateful, and I remind myself constantly so, that it is a miracle that I am alive, six feet above ground and warm to the touch… BUT. I see people eating from garbage cans, I read about death in the daily papers, I know people who work abnormally hard just to stay financially afloat. I know people who will never get adequate health care, whose children will never be adequately educated and whose future (if not stopped by a bullet) will be to step into their parents miserable places unless we can find a way to break that cycle. Remember, these are also people that were told that they could be President, and not told that they would never be able to afford to visit the dentist regularly.
What do I want from life? I want what a lot of us Americans want: change for the better. The truth would be a start. And yes, I’m not as tall as I appear on film.
By
Phil LaMancusa
The Death Of Don Flagrante Delicto
In my youth I was told that I could grow up to be President and furthermore, that I could petition the Lord with prayer. Thus far, all evidence that those are true statements are to the contrary.
On a 1975 album by the Tubes, a tune called ‘What do you want from life?’ promised me that as an American citizen I was entitled to, among other things, a heated kidney shaped pool, a Gucci shoe tree, Bob Dylan’s new unlisted phone number, Rosemary’s baby, a foolproof plan, an airtight alibi and a statue of a baby’s arm holding an apple.
According to recent emails, I also deserve lower body fat, higher energy levels, wrinkle reduction, sexual potency, better memory, muscle strength and lower mortgage interest rates. Also, at my request, I can have human growth hormones, relaxers, sedatives, university degrees, viagra, lower credit interest rates, and the ability to investigate any of my friends.
Add to that, I can get Heather’s (and her pre-pubescent friends) web cam shots, the websites of young Russian and Japanese women that are just frothing at the mouth to wed me, Paris Hilton’s xxxx video (with sound), breast enhancement, a gargantuan penis and staying power; and honey, I CAN BE COMPLETE!!!
What went wrong?
Me. I must have missed something growing up. This could be equated to our politics. I know that if I lived in a Democratic society I would have leaders that would do what I tell them is best for me. And, if I happened to vote Republican, I would get leaders that I could count on to do the best for me and that no one would tell me lies. This is simply not true. For leaders and example setters, I have charlatans.
Also, I’m told, as an American, I should be able to count on the media to tell me that there are limitations specific to my economic, physical and intelligence station, and not to jerk me off. This has also not been the case in my recent memory.
Is the media Republican or Democrat? Good question. By the above criteria the media is neither. The media is a Dictator. A dictator and, in essence, a vanity manipulator.
Don’t get me wrong; I have paid my buck at the kissing booths of life:
“Hate that gray? Wash it away!”, “Lose 20 lbs. in two weeks!”, “learn the love secrets of the stars’, “A cleaner closer shave”, “Good for coughs, colds, sore holes, puts hair on anything but a cue ball!, etc. etc. etc.”
Like a lot of Americans, I play the lottery, have lost my paycheck at black jack tables, bet my life on someone to love me for the rest of my life and read books on invisibility, physical immortality, gotten drunk on the elixir of patriotism and taken the Course in Miracles. So?
So, should I not be content with the words that my parents praised my birth with? “He’s got five fingers on each hand, he’s got ten toes and, thank God, he ain’t a moron!” I should be so flattered, I should think that. I don’t
It seems to me that it’s become more important who it is that wins than what it is that’s right. I am suspicious that, as they say, ‘something is rotten in Denmark’, I smell it, I feel it, I know it. The world I live in demands that I should BE SOMEBODY, but it never tells me how to be that somebody; or whom that somebody is. I did not come with an owners manual; so, like a blind man in an unfamiliar space, I’ve been trying to feel my way through life.
I think that there are a lot of us lost Americans, the ones who didn’t become President, the ones whose prayers have not been answered, that may wonder these same things.
It’s as elusive as a fire fly, but as pervasive as planters warts. The rich get richer, the poor have children, the criminals take what they want, the mighty are felled to rise again and the downtrodden are snatched from the brink once again to be given one final flogging. Is this goodness being rewarded? Does God move in mysterious ways? Give me a break!
By all the evidence collected thus far, it’s not a reach to say that: some people get more than their fair share; not because they deserve it, but, by the fact that they’re willing to stick it to some smaller guy, the average Joe. Period. And there are more of us smaller guys than there are them, so go figure. Greed talks and the rest of us walks.
This is not a rant or a rave, but more of ‘I’m weary of folks telling us how fortunate we are instead of letting us in on the screwing that we’re taking. Dry, hard and up against a tree.
And I know that I should be grateful, yes downright grateful, and I remind myself constantly so, that it is a miracle that I am alive, six feet above ground and warm to the touch… BUT. I see people eating from garbage cans, I read about death in the daily papers, I know people who work abnormally hard just to stay financially afloat. I know people who will never get adequate health care, whose children will never be adequately educated and whose future (if not stopped by a bullet) will be to step into their parents miserable places unless we can find a way to break that cycle. Remember, these are also people that were told that they could be President, and not told that they would never be able to afford to visit the dentist regularly.
What do I want from life? I want what a lot of us Americans want: change for the better. The truth would be a start. And yes, I’m not as tall as I appear on film.
Christmas, Elvis and New Orleans
Po boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
Or
Santa Claus Is Back In Town
I didn’t want to work on my birthday, much less around Christmas time and December in general is not a good time for me; but the call came. I was to chauffeur Elvis (yes, he’s back) while he was in town to give a speech on globalization. I couldn’t refuse, I mean, how often do I get be behind the wheel of the Beast. You know… my 410, duel carb, three on the tree, ’67 Checker limousine? You know, the one with the speedometer that goes up to 140 MPH and doesn’t lie? The one that will do 90 in second gear …up hill? The one that takes up as much parking space as my girlfriend’s apartment? I’ll tell you…not often enough. I welcomed any excuse, even if it was only to drive Signor Presley, as he was now known, around the French Quarter. Dressing for success, I put on clean underwear and a rare smile. I sharpened my wit for the unsuspecting.
The first stop was at Claire’s on Conti where we hooked up with three waitresses of my recent acquaintance; comparisonwise, they made the Witches of Eastwick look like girl scouts. Their assignment was to keep Elvis practicing his Cuban accent (he said that it had helped Desi Arnez remain undetected for decades and was working wonders for him as well).
While I was grabbing a smoke in the patio by the pool, the ladies grouped around him and drilled him in the art of accent. Even though only one of them was actually Cuban, they all knew their stuff (“no, no no!…not ‘Evre tahm Ah’m taykin’ thuh elevaduh’, “say it again”… ‘Ebbree tine Ayne een de allibater’”). I moved out of earshot and practiced blowing smoke rings. Lucky Strikes make great smoke rings.
Christmas in New Orleans is like that; a perpetual light drizzle in an unctuous gray sky, slightly depressing, but not particularly cold yet, smoke rings in the air, and ‘The King’ practicing his Cuban accent in a cozy patio bar in the French Quarter. Go figure.
Imagine a wet Labrador, after rolling on a dead snake, or in mule dung, insisting on a big lick of your face and a cuddle up. It doesn’t get any better than this. Unfortunately.
I wandered outside to check on the Beast. As I passed the door of the ladies room, and arm shot out and dragged me in. It was dark in there and someone, decidedly feminine, was nuzzling me, the scent of tea olives was heady in my senses. ‘What’s the worst that can happen, I thought?’
Suddenly the lights slap on and an elderly Asian couple, escorting an overweight mentally challenged young woman relative burst in with their language barrier in tow and I dive for the shower. Meantime Elvis is in the back seat of the Beast making out with all three of the waitresses. A train whistle blows.
It’s quiet now in the rest room and I sneak back to the bar dressed in the only thing I could find to wear, a lavender waitress uniform. I’m looking for my clothes.
I come up behind Claire who’s taking a drink order from a table and I hiss my demands. She out-hisses me with something that I could swear sounds like “f#cking moron” and proceeds to ignore me. I slither towards the door, hugging the wall. A small boy sitting on the floor by the door, back to the wall, tosses me my dripping trousers and jerks his thumb, indicating that, apparently, the rest of my apparel is outside on the street. In a rare fit of clarity, I decide that it’s time to wake up from this dream and find a drink. It’s not easy living in a cul de sac of sanity; it’s kind of like being backed in to a corner that you’ve painted yourself into.
Outside everything was back to normal. Christmas lights were strung everywhere, Dads were lugging home dead fir trees, and blindfolded children were swinging long sticks at piñatas. ‘Twenty somethings’ were snake dancing down Bourbon Street with hunger in their eyes and beer on their breath, singing “play that funky music, white boy”. There were women in tight clothing and men with powerful hand guns. Large birds were about to be sacrificed for the Baby Jesus' birthday. My goose would be cooked. Bells would ring, dogs would bark. It was good to be home. It was a street gumbo study in black and white. A regurgitated pasta jambalaya with fettuccine.
Somehow I felt safe in the harsh olfactory reminder of excess, impatience and inebriation. These were my ‘peeps’, my ‘rounds’, my ‘dogs’.
Here, I’m Peter with the lost boys. I never have to grow up; I’m not a face in the crowd, I’m not some ugly rumor, I’m not just tolerated. I’m loved because of who I am, not left alone because no one cares.
I could cross Canal Street; I know a half a dozen bars that house incoherant mutants that, since noon, have been jabbering nonsense into the air, passed one another and into outer space. Cosmic debris, like me. But no, I prefer to be who I am with people who know me.
I go to Molly’s on Toulouse, Polly pours me a ‘chilled beverage’. “Lovely to see you again my friend”.
It is amazing to me that after traveling, no, after wandering. those hundreds of thousands of miles that I can find the spirit of Christmas in a friend’s eyes, right here at home.
Or as the Moody Blues said a long time ago: “Isn’t life strange?”
Or as Ren and Stimpie said, more recently: “Happy, happy… Joy, joy”. Only love can save you.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered
Or
Santa Claus Is Back In Town
I didn’t want to work on my birthday, much less around Christmas time and December in general is not a good time for me; but the call came. I was to chauffeur Elvis (yes, he’s back) while he was in town to give a speech on globalization. I couldn’t refuse, I mean, how often do I get be behind the wheel of the Beast. You know… my 410, duel carb, three on the tree, ’67 Checker limousine? You know, the one with the speedometer that goes up to 140 MPH and doesn’t lie? The one that will do 90 in second gear …up hill? The one that takes up as much parking space as my girlfriend’s apartment? I’ll tell you…not often enough. I welcomed any excuse, even if it was only to drive Signor Presley, as he was now known, around the French Quarter. Dressing for success, I put on clean underwear and a rare smile. I sharpened my wit for the unsuspecting.
The first stop was at Claire’s on Conti where we hooked up with three waitresses of my recent acquaintance; comparisonwise, they made the Witches of Eastwick look like girl scouts. Their assignment was to keep Elvis practicing his Cuban accent (he said that it had helped Desi Arnez remain undetected for decades and was working wonders for him as well).
While I was grabbing a smoke in the patio by the pool, the ladies grouped around him and drilled him in the art of accent. Even though only one of them was actually Cuban, they all knew their stuff (“no, no no!…not ‘Evre tahm Ah’m taykin’ thuh elevaduh’, “say it again”… ‘Ebbree tine Ayne een de allibater’”). I moved out of earshot and practiced blowing smoke rings. Lucky Strikes make great smoke rings.
Christmas in New Orleans is like that; a perpetual light drizzle in an unctuous gray sky, slightly depressing, but not particularly cold yet, smoke rings in the air, and ‘The King’ practicing his Cuban accent in a cozy patio bar in the French Quarter. Go figure.
Imagine a wet Labrador, after rolling on a dead snake, or in mule dung, insisting on a big lick of your face and a cuddle up. It doesn’t get any better than this. Unfortunately.
I wandered outside to check on the Beast. As I passed the door of the ladies room, and arm shot out and dragged me in. It was dark in there and someone, decidedly feminine, was nuzzling me, the scent of tea olives was heady in my senses. ‘What’s the worst that can happen, I thought?’
Suddenly the lights slap on and an elderly Asian couple, escorting an overweight mentally challenged young woman relative burst in with their language barrier in tow and I dive for the shower. Meantime Elvis is in the back seat of the Beast making out with all three of the waitresses. A train whistle blows.
It’s quiet now in the rest room and I sneak back to the bar dressed in the only thing I could find to wear, a lavender waitress uniform. I’m looking for my clothes.
I come up behind Claire who’s taking a drink order from a table and I hiss my demands. She out-hisses me with something that I could swear sounds like “f#cking moron” and proceeds to ignore me. I slither towards the door, hugging the wall. A small boy sitting on the floor by the door, back to the wall, tosses me my dripping trousers and jerks his thumb, indicating that, apparently, the rest of my apparel is outside on the street. In a rare fit of clarity, I decide that it’s time to wake up from this dream and find a drink. It’s not easy living in a cul de sac of sanity; it’s kind of like being backed in to a corner that you’ve painted yourself into.
Outside everything was back to normal. Christmas lights were strung everywhere, Dads were lugging home dead fir trees, and blindfolded children were swinging long sticks at piñatas. ‘Twenty somethings’ were snake dancing down Bourbon Street with hunger in their eyes and beer on their breath, singing “play that funky music, white boy”. There were women in tight clothing and men with powerful hand guns. Large birds were about to be sacrificed for the Baby Jesus' birthday. My goose would be cooked. Bells would ring, dogs would bark. It was good to be home. It was a street gumbo study in black and white. A regurgitated pasta jambalaya with fettuccine.
Somehow I felt safe in the harsh olfactory reminder of excess, impatience and inebriation. These were my ‘peeps’, my ‘rounds’, my ‘dogs’.
Here, I’m Peter with the lost boys. I never have to grow up; I’m not a face in the crowd, I’m not some ugly rumor, I’m not just tolerated. I’m loved because of who I am, not left alone because no one cares.
I could cross Canal Street; I know a half a dozen bars that house incoherant mutants that, since noon, have been jabbering nonsense into the air, passed one another and into outer space. Cosmic debris, like me. But no, I prefer to be who I am with people who know me.
I go to Molly’s on Toulouse, Polly pours me a ‘chilled beverage’. “Lovely to see you again my friend”.
It is amazing to me that after traveling, no, after wandering. those hundreds of thousands of miles that I can find the spirit of Christmas in a friend’s eyes, right here at home.
Or as the Moody Blues said a long time ago: “Isn’t life strange?”
Or as Ren and Stimpie said, more recently: “Happy, happy… Joy, joy”. Only love can save you.
Holloween in New Orleans in New Orleans
Po-Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
The odds are against us
Or
It isn’t Halloween that’s scary; it’s everyday life
Thirty Helens agree: “there’s no disgrace like home”. In a nutshell, that about sums it up for me. No, rats are not gnawing at my brain; I’ve come down with a case of Mathematic Statistic Constipation (MSC) compounded by Sensory Media Overload (SMO).
Oh, I know that you think that I have it made with my girlfriend that drinks beer out of the can, a dog that plays pool for money and a monkey that cheats at cards; and you’re thinking “Plus, he continually gets paid to write drivel in a great urban publication, what are the odds of that?” I’ll tell you. About a hundred thousand to one.
You might add that I’m one of 4,300 people who has found space to rent in one of the 2,000 buildings in the french Quarter, that I’m not one of the 1,000 cases a day that need to be seen at Charity Hospital, or one of the ‘one a day average’ killings that take place in this city (counting those by law enforcers). What are the odds?
I’m not one of the half of the population that’s unemployed or the quarter of the population that live in poverty. I am not one of the more than 3,000,000 people that have lost their jobs since the current administration took office. I’m not one of the 46% of children born in Louisiana into single parent homes. The 60% that live in poverty and 17% that are reared in households with an income of less than $7,500.00 a year”. I’m not one out of every seven women in Louisiana that have been or are being stalked (up 20% over national average).
Statistically speaking, I am not one of the 30% of the adult population that cannot read above a fifth grade level. I’m also not part of either the 39% population stuck in illiteracy level one, or the 75% of the population (and this is all in New Orleans) stuck in illiteracy level two”. I am stuck up to my kiester in statistics!
I am part of the 56% of eligible voters that has registered and part of the roughly half of the registered voters that actually do vote.
Does any of that do me any good? No. 99% of the ideas that I have to save humanity are largely overlooked by 100% of the people who could implement those policies.
Where I work, there is a notice, posted by The Louisiana Restaurant Association about crime in the workplace. It says that there is one robbery every 46 seconds, one assault every 29 seconds, one rape every 5 minutes, and one murder every 21 minutes. Is this America?
I decided, hey, I can come up with statistics on my own. I funded a private study, retained an independent research team of expert (me), and came up with these startling, if not facts, at least, plausible statistics. This is only a small %
Life
87% of the public wish Ben and Jen would just go away.
Of the 59 parts of my body that a glamour magazine says “I want ‘her’ to know about” I can only think of 2%.
Only 12% of cars (including cabs and cops) use turn signals.
Nobody likes rap music. It’s just that 85% of young people don’t know how to sing.
Like most screaming heterosexual men, I spend 57% of my time thinking about women and glasses of beer. What do I do with the other 43%? Sleep mostly.
The Universe
98% of people think that if indeed money can’t buy happiness at least it can purchase acceptable substitutes; of those 98%, 100% think that money can buy anything.
Only one person in Flushing, Queens, New York knows all the words to “The Tattooed Lady”. What are the odds?
94% of the population know what a ‘kit’ is; these same people do not know what a ‘caboodle’ is.
There is an editorialist that can use the term ‘87 Billion Dollars’ no less than ten times in a single article.
99% of dead people do not look like they’re ‘only sleeping’.
We’re all overweight.
Every government, at all levels, lies 78% of the time about matters concerning their credibility, capability, culpability or any other ability questioned.
There is a bookstore in Austin that has 1,000 different magazines, 0% are soft or hard pornography.
100% of all the money that I should have been saving for my retirement has been spent on sex, drugs and Rock and Roll.
There are only three degrees of separation between you and someone who’s been mugged. 100% true.
Everything Else
There’s no such thing as consumer confidence to 87% of people with incomes of less than $50,000.00 a year.
It costs a family of three roughly 50% less income than it takes a single parent with two children.
99.9% of everyone you know has had a bicycle stolen or knows someone who has.
‘Canoodle’ is not in the dictionary; but tell someone that you did a little of it last night and 66% will smile knowingly.
Winking with both eyes at the same time will only upset 2% of the population.
96% of people that are alarmed by American jobs that are lost to foreign markets buy goods from other countries without checking the origin on the label.
Public littering is a way of life to 81% of the population in New Orleans. Spitting percentages are higher.
New Orleans, as a city, does not have the highest % of murders in the
U.S.A. The fact is that New Orleans is 15,000 people shy of being called a city (We’ll have to be satisfied with having the highest homicide rate per capita in the country). Question: what happened to those 15,000 people?
Probably, you’re as scared as I am about answering your door on any night, including Halloween. Incidentally, the term ‘probably’ is defined as a 40-70% chance that what you expect will or will not happen. Think about it.
By
Phil LaMancusa
The odds are against us
Or
It isn’t Halloween that’s scary; it’s everyday life
Thirty Helens agree: “there’s no disgrace like home”. In a nutshell, that about sums it up for me. No, rats are not gnawing at my brain; I’ve come down with a case of Mathematic Statistic Constipation (MSC) compounded by Sensory Media Overload (SMO).
Oh, I know that you think that I have it made with my girlfriend that drinks beer out of the can, a dog that plays pool for money and a monkey that cheats at cards; and you’re thinking “Plus, he continually gets paid to write drivel in a great urban publication, what are the odds of that?” I’ll tell you. About a hundred thousand to one.
You might add that I’m one of 4,300 people who has found space to rent in one of the 2,000 buildings in the french Quarter, that I’m not one of the 1,000 cases a day that need to be seen at Charity Hospital, or one of the ‘one a day average’ killings that take place in this city (counting those by law enforcers). What are the odds?
I’m not one of the half of the population that’s unemployed or the quarter of the population that live in poverty. I am not one of the more than 3,000,000 people that have lost their jobs since the current administration took office. I’m not one of the 46% of children born in Louisiana into single parent homes. The 60% that live in poverty and 17% that are reared in households with an income of less than $7,500.00 a year”. I’m not one out of every seven women in Louisiana that have been or are being stalked (up 20% over national average).
Statistically speaking, I am not one of the 30% of the adult population that cannot read above a fifth grade level. I’m also not part of either the 39% population stuck in illiteracy level one, or the 75% of the population (and this is all in New Orleans) stuck in illiteracy level two”. I am stuck up to my kiester in statistics!
I am part of the 56% of eligible voters that has registered and part of the roughly half of the registered voters that actually do vote.
Does any of that do me any good? No. 99% of the ideas that I have to save humanity are largely overlooked by 100% of the people who could implement those policies.
Where I work, there is a notice, posted by The Louisiana Restaurant Association about crime in the workplace. It says that there is one robbery every 46 seconds, one assault every 29 seconds, one rape every 5 minutes, and one murder every 21 minutes. Is this America?
I decided, hey, I can come up with statistics on my own. I funded a private study, retained an independent research team of expert (me), and came up with these startling, if not facts, at least, plausible statistics. This is only a small %
Life
87% of the public wish Ben and Jen would just go away.
Of the 59 parts of my body that a glamour magazine says “I want ‘her’ to know about” I can only think of 2%.
Only 12% of cars (including cabs and cops) use turn signals.
Nobody likes rap music. It’s just that 85% of young people don’t know how to sing.
Like most screaming heterosexual men, I spend 57% of my time thinking about women and glasses of beer. What do I do with the other 43%? Sleep mostly.
The Universe
98% of people think that if indeed money can’t buy happiness at least it can purchase acceptable substitutes; of those 98%, 100% think that money can buy anything.
Only one person in Flushing, Queens, New York knows all the words to “The Tattooed Lady”. What are the odds?
94% of the population know what a ‘kit’ is; these same people do not know what a ‘caboodle’ is.
There is an editorialist that can use the term ‘87 Billion Dollars’ no less than ten times in a single article.
99% of dead people do not look like they’re ‘only sleeping’.
We’re all overweight.
Every government, at all levels, lies 78% of the time about matters concerning their credibility, capability, culpability or any other ability questioned.
There is a bookstore in Austin that has 1,000 different magazines, 0% are soft or hard pornography.
100% of all the money that I should have been saving for my retirement has been spent on sex, drugs and Rock and Roll.
There are only three degrees of separation between you and someone who’s been mugged. 100% true.
Everything Else
There’s no such thing as consumer confidence to 87% of people with incomes of less than $50,000.00 a year.
It costs a family of three roughly 50% less income than it takes a single parent with two children.
99.9% of everyone you know has had a bicycle stolen or knows someone who has.
‘Canoodle’ is not in the dictionary; but tell someone that you did a little of it last night and 66% will smile knowingly.
Winking with both eyes at the same time will only upset 2% of the population.
96% of people that are alarmed by American jobs that are lost to foreign markets buy goods from other countries without checking the origin on the label.
Public littering is a way of life to 81% of the population in New Orleans. Spitting percentages are higher.
New Orleans, as a city, does not have the highest % of murders in the
U.S.A. The fact is that New Orleans is 15,000 people shy of being called a city (We’ll have to be satisfied with having the highest homicide rate per capita in the country). Question: what happened to those 15,000 people?
Probably, you’re as scared as I am about answering your door on any night, including Halloween. Incidentally, the term ‘probably’ is defined as a 40-70% chance that what you expect will or will not happen. Think about it.
New Years in New Orleans
Poor Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
And So It Is New Years, And What Have You Done?
Or
Waltzing Mathilda
Good evening and welcome, yes welcome once again to the annual New Years Predictions of the next latest top stories, coming to you from the Dicken’s Prediction Agency, Polling Grounds, Gossip Central, Rumor Control and from contributions to your local W’YAT station from readers like you. Thank you. I’m your host Phil LaMancusa.
For you readers that are new to the show, let me explain. The Dicken’s Prediction Agency works on the theory that the news of the past, seen through the eyes of the news of the present leads to the news from the future. For example: in our top story tonight (or today at coffee; or whatever the case may be), the cathedral will be adding video poker machines to their vestibule to increase revenues, it will be called “Gambling for God”. A spokesperson for the church is quoted as saying, “four Marys will not beat out four Blessed Saviors, but a full house of Archangels will pay triple”.
In other news, the city has approved Harrah’s construction of a theme water park taking up the entire two hundred block of Chartres St. Using the same architect and construction crew that has worked on the restoration of the court house the park will open in 2020. Meanwhile The Largest Corporation In The World is suing the city, saying that they were promised the sale of the entire French Quarter to build a MacCola DisWalSoft World theme park, tearing down all buildings and replacing them with more durable heavy plastic replicas, a process that they said would take about forty eight hours and not interrupt business in the least.
Speaking of business, a plan has been unveiled at city hall for all plastic cups, beads etc distributed this year at Mardi Gras to be coated with a substance that smells like corn. Herds of swine would then be left to roam the streets literally eating all the trash. The plan hit a snag when Lionel Travis, a six year old, asked: “What are we gonna do with all that pig poop?”
Other breaking stories concern four juvenile robbery suspects who were captured after leading police on a 15-minute chase from uptown to mid-city.
The young males, three 10-year olds and one 8-year old were captured by the city’s elite “Under 12 Crime Unit” when they stopped in their stolen golf cart to celebrate at a sno-ball stand. A spokesperson for the unit identified detective Wenzel Denzel as the 11-year old ‘cop that got the drop’.
Iraq has opened it’s first suicide bomber speedway where loaded cars can compete using empty building as their targets. In the third day of fierce competition prizes were still unclaimed.
Elsewhere in Iraq the fighting seems to be over. The New Orleans Brigade, brought over as a last resort explained how this was accomplished.
They sighted a more streetwise approach using rap music, gang warfare, hip-hop fashion and posters of music stars to frighten Al-Quaida operatives into giving up. As PFC Freddie “Pooh Bear” Minorca, 14, put it “Sh_t….. dem guys don’t know a Mother F—kin’ thing about killin’. We can do more damage on a Saturday night in the ‘hood’ then they do here in a week!”
Back at home the local daily newspaper, promising to only show sports news and sensationalistic murder trials on the front page, has celebrated it’s first daily edition in which there are no murders reported. Said an Editorial aide based in the New York headquarters: “Good thing for us we sent all those guys to Iraq”.
Speaking of Iraq, congress has been asked to appropriate an additional Gazillion Samollians for the rebuilding effort; pointing out that schools, roads, and hospitals aren’t enough to lift the morale of these oppressed people, a White House aide pointed out that we need to build “Shopping facilities, multi-plex theaters, fast food outlets, and amusement parks as well”. The Largest Corporation In The World, that controls both houses, assured Americans that this was a good thing for the economy and lowered interest rates another half a percent.
On the health scene a final touch has been put on the Medicare bill. Seniors will now be charged for services whether they receive them or not. The money will go directly to drug companies and vacationing doctors. A spokesperson for Pharmaceuticals-R-Us, a subsidiary of The Largest Corporation In The World, announced that a ‘Get Tough Or Die’ policy has been implemented and needed “no ‘splaining”. Senior Presley went on to point out that this was a principle that the country was built on and introduced legislature of a bill call ‘No Work, No Food’, aimed at taking care of the nation’s problematic five million Americans that are out of work.
In sports the local teams have agreed to lose all games before they are played to cut down on fan disappointment. “We’re getting back to the original idea of guys getting together to drink beer, paint themselves funny colors and yell stuff, you know?” said Andy Randy of the ninth ward. Not to worry though; public floggings, executions and half time shows will keep the crowds amused. Way to go fellas.
After a word about the weather, rotten, anchorperson Mrs. Aurelia M. Lampo will return with the progress report on the oil drilling scheduled to begin Monday in the courtyard of Commander’s Palace. But first here’s a twenty minute commercial from our sponsor The Largest Corporation In The World.
Thank you and have a pleasant evening.
By
Phil LaMancusa
And So It Is New Years, And What Have You Done?
Or
Waltzing Mathilda
Good evening and welcome, yes welcome once again to the annual New Years Predictions of the next latest top stories, coming to you from the Dicken’s Prediction Agency, Polling Grounds, Gossip Central, Rumor Control and from contributions to your local W’YAT station from readers like you. Thank you. I’m your host Phil LaMancusa.
For you readers that are new to the show, let me explain. The Dicken’s Prediction Agency works on the theory that the news of the past, seen through the eyes of the news of the present leads to the news from the future. For example: in our top story tonight (or today at coffee; or whatever the case may be), the cathedral will be adding video poker machines to their vestibule to increase revenues, it will be called “Gambling for God”. A spokesperson for the church is quoted as saying, “four Marys will not beat out four Blessed Saviors, but a full house of Archangels will pay triple”.
In other news, the city has approved Harrah’s construction of a theme water park taking up the entire two hundred block of Chartres St. Using the same architect and construction crew that has worked on the restoration of the court house the park will open in 2020. Meanwhile The Largest Corporation In The World is suing the city, saying that they were promised the sale of the entire French Quarter to build a MacCola DisWalSoft World theme park, tearing down all buildings and replacing them with more durable heavy plastic replicas, a process that they said would take about forty eight hours and not interrupt business in the least.
Speaking of business, a plan has been unveiled at city hall for all plastic cups, beads etc distributed this year at Mardi Gras to be coated with a substance that smells like corn. Herds of swine would then be left to roam the streets literally eating all the trash. The plan hit a snag when Lionel Travis, a six year old, asked: “What are we gonna do with all that pig poop?”
Other breaking stories concern four juvenile robbery suspects who were captured after leading police on a 15-minute chase from uptown to mid-city.
The young males, three 10-year olds and one 8-year old were captured by the city’s elite “Under 12 Crime Unit” when they stopped in their stolen golf cart to celebrate at a sno-ball stand. A spokesperson for the unit identified detective Wenzel Denzel as the 11-year old ‘cop that got the drop’.
Iraq has opened it’s first suicide bomber speedway where loaded cars can compete using empty building as their targets. In the third day of fierce competition prizes were still unclaimed.
Elsewhere in Iraq the fighting seems to be over. The New Orleans Brigade, brought over as a last resort explained how this was accomplished.
They sighted a more streetwise approach using rap music, gang warfare, hip-hop fashion and posters of music stars to frighten Al-Quaida operatives into giving up. As PFC Freddie “Pooh Bear” Minorca, 14, put it “Sh_t….. dem guys don’t know a Mother F—kin’ thing about killin’. We can do more damage on a Saturday night in the ‘hood’ then they do here in a week!”
Back at home the local daily newspaper, promising to only show sports news and sensationalistic murder trials on the front page, has celebrated it’s first daily edition in which there are no murders reported. Said an Editorial aide based in the New York headquarters: “Good thing for us we sent all those guys to Iraq”.
Speaking of Iraq, congress has been asked to appropriate an additional Gazillion Samollians for the rebuilding effort; pointing out that schools, roads, and hospitals aren’t enough to lift the morale of these oppressed people, a White House aide pointed out that we need to build “Shopping facilities, multi-plex theaters, fast food outlets, and amusement parks as well”. The Largest Corporation In The World, that controls both houses, assured Americans that this was a good thing for the economy and lowered interest rates another half a percent.
On the health scene a final touch has been put on the Medicare bill. Seniors will now be charged for services whether they receive them or not. The money will go directly to drug companies and vacationing doctors. A spokesperson for Pharmaceuticals-R-Us, a subsidiary of The Largest Corporation In The World, announced that a ‘Get Tough Or Die’ policy has been implemented and needed “no ‘splaining”. Senior Presley went on to point out that this was a principle that the country was built on and introduced legislature of a bill call ‘No Work, No Food’, aimed at taking care of the nation’s problematic five million Americans that are out of work.
In sports the local teams have agreed to lose all games before they are played to cut down on fan disappointment. “We’re getting back to the original idea of guys getting together to drink beer, paint themselves funny colors and yell stuff, you know?” said Andy Randy of the ninth ward. Not to worry though; public floggings, executions and half time shows will keep the crowds amused. Way to go fellas.
After a word about the weather, rotten, anchorperson Mrs. Aurelia M. Lampo will return with the progress report on the oil drilling scheduled to begin Monday in the courtyard of Commander’s Palace. But first here’s a twenty minute commercial from our sponsor The Largest Corporation In The World.
Thank you and have a pleasant evening.
Satchfeast in New Orleans
Po-Boy Views
By
Phil LaMancusa
Cliff Hanger Satchmo
Or
“Can’t Hold On Much Longer”
I may not be the picture of wholesomeness, watching Fred Rogers at 5:00 a.m. with a beer, a cigarette and a blank expression on my mugg; but you know, I get some of my best thinking done on an all-nighter. Then again, I like New York in June (how about yew?).
Well, whatever; take this ‘Satch-fest’ thing, or whatever it’s called. This is a subject that I’ve been avoiding for the last five years. Avoiding talking about, avoiding writing about, avoiding thinking about. Why? Because a New Orleans love affair with Mr. Armstrong is like that of a faded harlot, after making nothing of herself, bragging about an ex-lover who, when all stories be told, spurned her. I mean, is this the same man that told reporters, about a half century ago, that if he never set foot in this town again that it would be too soon for him (or words to that effect)?
To prepare myself for this writer’s hell, I immersed myself in the subject of Louis, the myth, the legend, the man. I read books, both in his own words and that of others, I played recordings over and over again, I heard rumors of cosmetic surgery, homosexuality and ties to organized crime. I know about at least one of his illegitimate children. I’ve had him for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the last friggin’ month, okay?
What did I come up with? A headache.
Was he a sell out, a philanderer, a musical Buddha, a pawn or a king? Yes. Did he lie about his birthday? Did his Mama ‘sell fish’ to keep bread on the table? Yes. Is his 1927 recording of ‘Hotter Than That’ and ‘West End Blues’ an epiphany of musical innovation? Yes. Did he mind slapping around his old lady if she beefed about his chippies? No. Did he bend over to the Guy Lombardo school of music? Yeah, man!
Let’s start at the beginning. Let’s draw the shades, open a bottle of cheap champagne, disconnect the phone and light up a Lucky. Also let’s chow down on a three-pound meatball po-boy from Matassa’s.
Louis was born a poor black child here (go figure), hustled anyway he could, and was fortunate enough to raise himself up in a time of ‘anything’s legal if you don’t get caught’ New Orleans (same as now).
Then, as now, there were three ways out of the ghetto (in those days most of this town was a ghetto): sex, drugs or music. Period. Racism was taken for granted by him for at least fifty-seven years.
Conflicting reports of how and when he got his first horn, put aside, does not diminish the ability he had for coaxing sounds from that ‘thang’. He simply could, so he did. A New Orleans hustle if there ever is one; take what you got and work it.
His second wife, Lil Hardin, schooled this overweight numbskull in the subtler ways of gaining acceptance to a wide variety of audiences (read ‘white’ here). Louis soon learned what could butter that scrap of bread he had to offer. White America. (you oughta look up ole Lil if you want some schoolin’) Basically he became a twentieth century minstrel, a clown with a horn.
New Orleans is a place that genius’ can live and die in, even now, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a musician; but ‘they be po’. Ya gotta leave town to make it. So he did.
And he never came back! (‘cept once or twice)
He was, and still is, a musical genius’ genius, BUT, the fact remains that our city is a graveyard for people like Buddy Bolden, Kid Ory, Bunk Johnson, Baby Dodds and their ilk .We play lip service to, and take credit for the roots of that thing called Jazz. But, like me, we’re too drunk, lazy, or complacent to nurture and keep it here.
Louis left the country to escape racism and mob control, did you know that? Louie criticized the President about civil rights and the white washing that it gave to Jim Crow. And got blacklisted for it. Hell, neighbor what are we celebrating?
You don’t know Louis like know Louis: Louis was a dumb kid from the third ward who suddenly found out that he had the talent and ability to not only reach the expertise of a master, such as Joe (KING) Oliver, but to surpass it! What are you to do then? Who do you play for?
Louis played for the world.
But he had to sell out. It’s as simple as this: say that I’ve got a whole alphabet to hip you to, but you can’t dig nutthin’ but the A B Cs? Guess what? Then as now, I’ll go where the do re me is and, like the farmer said to the potato: “plant you now and dig you later”.
A hundred years later, and if you’re lucky, if you’re very very lucky, if your listening ear has not become as prejudiced as Louie’s South is. If you are that lucky, you’ll put this rag down and put on the Hot fives and Hot Sevens, light up a Lucky, pop a cool one and dig. If not, you’re a dumb Mother Cracker and only deserve to read Dick and Jane for the rest of your life.
If you’re a woman reading this: Louis was no better than that loser you’ve got now: don’t envy his women. If you be a man reading this: If you ain’t blowin’---you ain’t knowin’ …………and if you can’t get somebody to hear your LMNO’s, how are you gonna get to your XYZs?
Think about it. Myself? I’m gonna put myself to bed with the Saint James Infirmary in my head and wish I was more like the ‘Satch’. Red beans and ricely yours. Amen.
By
Phil LaMancusa
Cliff Hanger Satchmo
Or
“Can’t Hold On Much Longer”
I may not be the picture of wholesomeness, watching Fred Rogers at 5:00 a.m. with a beer, a cigarette and a blank expression on my mugg; but you know, I get some of my best thinking done on an all-nighter. Then again, I like New York in June (how about yew?).
Well, whatever; take this ‘Satch-fest’ thing, or whatever it’s called. This is a subject that I’ve been avoiding for the last five years. Avoiding talking about, avoiding writing about, avoiding thinking about. Why? Because a New Orleans love affair with Mr. Armstrong is like that of a faded harlot, after making nothing of herself, bragging about an ex-lover who, when all stories be told, spurned her. I mean, is this the same man that told reporters, about a half century ago, that if he never set foot in this town again that it would be too soon for him (or words to that effect)?
To prepare myself for this writer’s hell, I immersed myself in the subject of Louis, the myth, the legend, the man. I read books, both in his own words and that of others, I played recordings over and over again, I heard rumors of cosmetic surgery, homosexuality and ties to organized crime. I know about at least one of his illegitimate children. I’ve had him for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the last friggin’ month, okay?
What did I come up with? A headache.
Was he a sell out, a philanderer, a musical Buddha, a pawn or a king? Yes. Did he lie about his birthday? Did his Mama ‘sell fish’ to keep bread on the table? Yes. Is his 1927 recording of ‘Hotter Than That’ and ‘West End Blues’ an epiphany of musical innovation? Yes. Did he mind slapping around his old lady if she beefed about his chippies? No. Did he bend over to the Guy Lombardo school of music? Yeah, man!
Let’s start at the beginning. Let’s draw the shades, open a bottle of cheap champagne, disconnect the phone and light up a Lucky. Also let’s chow down on a three-pound meatball po-boy from Matassa’s.
Louis was born a poor black child here (go figure), hustled anyway he could, and was fortunate enough to raise himself up in a time of ‘anything’s legal if you don’t get caught’ New Orleans (same as now).
Then, as now, there were three ways out of the ghetto (in those days most of this town was a ghetto): sex, drugs or music. Period. Racism was taken for granted by him for at least fifty-seven years.
Conflicting reports of how and when he got his first horn, put aside, does not diminish the ability he had for coaxing sounds from that ‘thang’. He simply could, so he did. A New Orleans hustle if there ever is one; take what you got and work it.
His second wife, Lil Hardin, schooled this overweight numbskull in the subtler ways of gaining acceptance to a wide variety of audiences (read ‘white’ here). Louis soon learned what could butter that scrap of bread he had to offer. White America. (you oughta look up ole Lil if you want some schoolin’) Basically he became a twentieth century minstrel, a clown with a horn.
New Orleans is a place that genius’ can live and die in, even now, you can’t throw a rock without hitting a musician; but ‘they be po’. Ya gotta leave town to make it. So he did.
And he never came back! (‘cept once or twice)
He was, and still is, a musical genius’ genius, BUT, the fact remains that our city is a graveyard for people like Buddy Bolden, Kid Ory, Bunk Johnson, Baby Dodds and their ilk .We play lip service to, and take credit for the roots of that thing called Jazz. But, like me, we’re too drunk, lazy, or complacent to nurture and keep it here.
Louis left the country to escape racism and mob control, did you know that? Louie criticized the President about civil rights and the white washing that it gave to Jim Crow. And got blacklisted for it. Hell, neighbor what are we celebrating?
You don’t know Louis like know Louis: Louis was a dumb kid from the third ward who suddenly found out that he had the talent and ability to not only reach the expertise of a master, such as Joe (KING) Oliver, but to surpass it! What are you to do then? Who do you play for?
Louis played for the world.
But he had to sell out. It’s as simple as this: say that I’ve got a whole alphabet to hip you to, but you can’t dig nutthin’ but the A B Cs? Guess what? Then as now, I’ll go where the do re me is and, like the farmer said to the potato: “plant you now and dig you later”.
A hundred years later, and if you’re lucky, if you’re very very lucky, if your listening ear has not become as prejudiced as Louie’s South is. If you are that lucky, you’ll put this rag down and put on the Hot fives and Hot Sevens, light up a Lucky, pop a cool one and dig. If not, you’re a dumb Mother Cracker and only deserve to read Dick and Jane for the rest of your life.
If you’re a woman reading this: Louis was no better than that loser you’ve got now: don’t envy his women. If you be a man reading this: If you ain’t blowin’---you ain’t knowin’ …………and if you can’t get somebody to hear your LMNO’s, how are you gonna get to your XYZs?
Think about it. Myself? I’m gonna put myself to bed with the Saint James Infirmary in my head and wish I was more like the ‘Satch’. Red beans and ricely yours. Amen.
Cosmic debris in New Orleans
‘Wasted and wounded; it ain’t what the moon did, and God what’m I payin’ for now?’
I resisted the temptation of having a beer for breakfast. Well, almost. Then again, what was I supposed to do, leave it by itself in the fridge and me on the verge of a hangover…..question mark, question mark, question mark. Oh, the choices we have to make when we’re on our own, especially when we have the whole day off.
Speaking of choices, is it just me, or is anyone else out there feeling older by the nanosecond? I mean, I hear folks talk about computers that will do everything but wipe your behind and my response is to go out and buy my landlady flowers to help her overlook the fact that I sit out late on the porch smoking Luckys, drinking PBR and listening to Buddy Holly on my turntable singin, “ that’ll be the day-hey-hey, when I die.”
I read in the paper that because Chinese people have to learn how to write all those squiggly kinds of handwriting (whatever it’s called) that they suffer from a lack of creativity. Who knew? Yet it figures, ten thousand years of civilization and the best that they can come up with is Moo Goo Gai Pan? C’mon my yellow brothers, we, on the other hand, know how to butcher people in the street as well as in other countries, and we’ll go you one better…. our children can do it as well, even in their schools!! Just think, maybe because our kids are dumber than dirt, they can concoct ways of smuggling AKA 47s into the gym without being caught… way to go guys.
In the same newspaper, I learned that if we stopped spitting and urinating in public, our crime rate would go down. Well, I tell ya, this American did his part only as recent as last night. That’s right, I could’ve whipped that bad boy out and let’er rip on the fence post, but did I? Not on your tintype! I held it!!! And I just know, that the world is a better place for it.
AND, just yesterday while listening to the plan to rescue a three-legged dog (anybody want one?) I heard about a State Trooper who apprehends an alligator, lassoes it, drags it behind his pick up to a ditch and puts a bullet through its head. Let’s see, what reading level would you put that role model at? Is it just me?
It seems to me that I come from a simpler, more gentle time; a time when singers were harmonizing “could it be I’m falling in love?” as opposed to grunting “gotta find me a Project Girl uh, uh!”
I’ll tell you how it was when I was growing up as opposed to how I see things now.
1. Then: I believed that by dressing smartly, learning to converse intelligently (on a variety of subjects), having skills on the dance floor, speaking politely to everyone but my peer group and, later on, knowing how to handle my alcohol intake would gain me the respect I thought that I deserved.
2. Then: I considered crossing at the corner, saving a candy wrapper for the next litter can, and finding a reason to compliment the next person I spoke with.
3. Then: I considered asking questions instead of demanding answers, meaning “excuse me” instead of “get out of my way” and never to taking a kindness as a weakness.
4. Then: I put romance before finance and even politeness before truth. I had never heard the phrase “talk shit, take none” and wouldn’t have believed it if I had. I practiced patience. Go figure.
5. Then: I didn’t trust anyone over thirty or younger than seventy, weighed my words before I spoke them and knew that this was ‘all about me’ but tried not to let anyone else see it. I believed in miracles.
6. Now: I don’t know. It seems that not only am I out of step and time, but that the drummer that I’m marching to got shot in a cosmic drive by long ago by weapons of mass distraction. I wonder if that last beer had a buddy in the box?
7. Now: good guys do finish last, bad guys won’t get what’s coming to them and being meek does not insure me of any inheritance what so ever.
8. Now: the phrase “have a nice day” means nothing. No one is having a nice day. What are you looking at? You know that it’s true! Do the terms ‘two weeks to live’, ‘ got mugged on the corner’ and ‘there is no cure’ sound foreign to you?
9. Now: I look a someone riding a bike to see if it’s mine that was stolen, make sure that I lock the door behind me and look over my shoulder when I walk home at night.
10. Now: I just don’t know.
Here’s what’s in today’s paper, and I’m not making this up.
1. In the 1990s New Orleans lost 9,000 jobs, mandatory helmet bill killed in House, Panel OKs easing video poker rules, they’re clearing out Tallulah Prison, SARS fatality rate higher than thought, Malvo’s confession can be used and a man is arrested after a ten hour stand off.
2. In the main section there are ads for one-day sales, no interest or payments till June 2004, you won’t believe our low prices, sex for life and it’s the laser procedure you’ve been waiting for.
3. In other news: man shot, killed after visiting friend, New Orleans man admits to 1976 rape and killing, man, 81, booked on obscenity charge and 4 are accused of beating deputy in a parking lot. There’s a woman arrested in a shooting, a man sought in a slaying, and, a girl, 16 sent to jail after shooting her boyfriend claiming that they were in bed and she was merely ‘playing’ with the gun. Oh, and a seventeen year old student died Thursday of blows to his head. Do you wonder why I drink?
4. Here’s one on the front page of the sport section: “ The 1-2 punch of Hurricane Lili and Tropical Storm Isadore last year accelerated the ecological nightmare known as coastal erosion.
On the lighter side: Jade Jagger designs jewelry for the stars, plasma screens are so sleek, they hold a sophisticated, almost artlike allure, Ben and J. Lo have found a Georgia retreat and there’s a new computer that will wipe your butt (alright, I made that one up)
Oh, and if you needed to know: my horoscope advises me to write in a journal, Snoopy is starting on a book entitled ‘The Dog’, the answer to 27 down is not ‘Rosebud’ and today is Jimmy Ruffin’s birthday.
Excuse me while I fetch a beverage.
I resisted the temptation of having a beer for breakfast. Well, almost. Then again, what was I supposed to do, leave it by itself in the fridge and me on the verge of a hangover…..question mark, question mark, question mark. Oh, the choices we have to make when we’re on our own, especially when we have the whole day off.
Speaking of choices, is it just me, or is anyone else out there feeling older by the nanosecond? I mean, I hear folks talk about computers that will do everything but wipe your behind and my response is to go out and buy my landlady flowers to help her overlook the fact that I sit out late on the porch smoking Luckys, drinking PBR and listening to Buddy Holly on my turntable singin, “ that’ll be the day-hey-hey, when I die.”
I read in the paper that because Chinese people have to learn how to write all those squiggly kinds of handwriting (whatever it’s called) that they suffer from a lack of creativity. Who knew? Yet it figures, ten thousand years of civilization and the best that they can come up with is Moo Goo Gai Pan? C’mon my yellow brothers, we, on the other hand, know how to butcher people in the street as well as in other countries, and we’ll go you one better…. our children can do it as well, even in their schools!! Just think, maybe because our kids are dumber than dirt, they can concoct ways of smuggling AKA 47s into the gym without being caught… way to go guys.
In the same newspaper, I learned that if we stopped spitting and urinating in public, our crime rate would go down. Well, I tell ya, this American did his part only as recent as last night. That’s right, I could’ve whipped that bad boy out and let’er rip on the fence post, but did I? Not on your tintype! I held it!!! And I just know, that the world is a better place for it.
AND, just yesterday while listening to the plan to rescue a three-legged dog (anybody want one?) I heard about a State Trooper who apprehends an alligator, lassoes it, drags it behind his pick up to a ditch and puts a bullet through its head. Let’s see, what reading level would you put that role model at? Is it just me?
It seems to me that I come from a simpler, more gentle time; a time when singers were harmonizing “could it be I’m falling in love?” as opposed to grunting “gotta find me a Project Girl uh, uh!”
I’ll tell you how it was when I was growing up as opposed to how I see things now.
1. Then: I believed that by dressing smartly, learning to converse intelligently (on a variety of subjects), having skills on the dance floor, speaking politely to everyone but my peer group and, later on, knowing how to handle my alcohol intake would gain me the respect I thought that I deserved.
2. Then: I considered crossing at the corner, saving a candy wrapper for the next litter can, and finding a reason to compliment the next person I spoke with.
3. Then: I considered asking questions instead of demanding answers, meaning “excuse me” instead of “get out of my way” and never to taking a kindness as a weakness.
4. Then: I put romance before finance and even politeness before truth. I had never heard the phrase “talk shit, take none” and wouldn’t have believed it if I had. I practiced patience. Go figure.
5. Then: I didn’t trust anyone over thirty or younger than seventy, weighed my words before I spoke them and knew that this was ‘all about me’ but tried not to let anyone else see it. I believed in miracles.
6. Now: I don’t know. It seems that not only am I out of step and time, but that the drummer that I’m marching to got shot in a cosmic drive by long ago by weapons of mass distraction. I wonder if that last beer had a buddy in the box?
7. Now: good guys do finish last, bad guys won’t get what’s coming to them and being meek does not insure me of any inheritance what so ever.
8. Now: the phrase “have a nice day” means nothing. No one is having a nice day. What are you looking at? You know that it’s true! Do the terms ‘two weeks to live’, ‘ got mugged on the corner’ and ‘there is no cure’ sound foreign to you?
9. Now: I look a someone riding a bike to see if it’s mine that was stolen, make sure that I lock the door behind me and look over my shoulder when I walk home at night.
10. Now: I just don’t know.
Here’s what’s in today’s paper, and I’m not making this up.
1. In the 1990s New Orleans lost 9,000 jobs, mandatory helmet bill killed in House, Panel OKs easing video poker rules, they’re clearing out Tallulah Prison, SARS fatality rate higher than thought, Malvo’s confession can be used and a man is arrested after a ten hour stand off.
2. In the main section there are ads for one-day sales, no interest or payments till June 2004, you won’t believe our low prices, sex for life and it’s the laser procedure you’ve been waiting for.
3. In other news: man shot, killed after visiting friend, New Orleans man admits to 1976 rape and killing, man, 81, booked on obscenity charge and 4 are accused of beating deputy in a parking lot. There’s a woman arrested in a shooting, a man sought in a slaying, and, a girl, 16 sent to jail after shooting her boyfriend claiming that they were in bed and she was merely ‘playing’ with the gun. Oh, and a seventeen year old student died Thursday of blows to his head. Do you wonder why I drink?
4. Here’s one on the front page of the sport section: “ The 1-2 punch of Hurricane Lili and Tropical Storm Isadore last year accelerated the ecological nightmare known as coastal erosion.
On the lighter side: Jade Jagger designs jewelry for the stars, plasma screens are so sleek, they hold a sophisticated, almost artlike allure, Ben and J. Lo have found a Georgia retreat and there’s a new computer that will wipe your butt (alright, I made that one up)
Oh, and if you needed to know: my horoscope advises me to write in a journal, Snoopy is starting on a book entitled ‘The Dog’, the answer to 27 down is not ‘Rosebud’ and today is Jimmy Ruffin’s birthday.
Excuse me while I fetch a beverage.
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